The Arana Documents from Emar Revisited

Abstract

This study reexamines the four Emar texts of real estate sales by the urban authority which include an account concerning arana. Although the present writer’s first attempt to interpret those accounts was rejected by two scholars, their arguments were rather problematic. On the other hand, an investigation of the ‘waste plots’ attested in the texts from Emar and Ekalte shows that the real estate sold in the four texts belongs to this category. The function of the account in those texts is to explain how the urban authority acquired the real estate now being sold. The present writer argues again that it describes an extensive exchange in Emar of royal (i.e., King Arana’s) real estate for urban money that occurred in the period before the Emar texts, and that the ‘waste plots’ sold in the four texts are remnants of this exchange which the urban authority had not sold off during this long period of time.