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Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 09/04/22, SPi
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 09/04/22, SPi

Prisons in Ancient
Mesopotamia
Confinement and Control until
the First Fall of Babylon

J. N IC HO L A S R E I D

1
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1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© J. Nicholas Reid 2022
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First Edition published in 2022
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021951897
ISBN 978–0–19–284961–8
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192849618.001.0001
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 09/04/22, SPi

To my children, Cooper, Noah, Caleb, and Hannah

πορευθέντες δὲ μάθετε τί ἐστιν ἔλεος θέλω καὶ οὐ θυσίαν (Matt. 9:13a)

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Contents

Acknowledgments ix
List of Figures xi
List of Tables xiii
Introduction1
The Birth and Evolution of the Prison in Modernity3
The Prison and Punishment5
A Roadmap to This Book14
1. Imprisonment from the Dawn of History to the
First Fall of Babylon 18
Introduction18
What We Know and What We Don’t20
Methodology and the Hymn to the Prison Goddess Nungal28
2. Confine and Control: Lexical and Social-­Historical Summary 37
Introduction37
e2-eš237
bīt asīrī42
e2 ennuĝ = bīt ṣibitti43
Other Key Terms54
The Prison in Literary Texts61
Conclusion63
3. How to End up Imprisoned 65
Introduction65
Law Collections in Ancient Mesopotamia66
Imprisonment in Edicts and Law Collections70
Reasons for Imprisonment72
Conclusion84
4. Judicial Process and Proof 86
Introduction86
Justice in Mesopotamia88
Judicial Summoning91
Detainment of Suspects93
Judicial Process95
The Awe of the Judicial Process98
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viii Contents

Oaths102
The River Ordeal117
Imprisonment of the Guilty124
Conclusion124
5. The Imprisoned Life 126
Introduction126
Life on the Inside: A Literary Perspective128
Personal Accounts of Life on the Inside130
Ur III Prison Rations136
Old Babylonian Prison Rations140
Time Served141
Conclusion150
6. The King in the Cage: Ritual Purification and Imprisonment 152
Introduction152
Purity and Purification153
Purity and the Gods154
Control Through Imprisonment157
Ritual Purification Through Imprisonment159
Imprisonment and Positive Change162
Conclusion166
Conclusion168

Bibliography 173
Authors 193
Primary Texts 196
General Subject Index 199
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Acknowledgments

This project has been my constant companion for many years now. I began
thinking about prisons in ancient Mesopotamia during my doctoral work at
the University of Oxford. After defending my dissertation on slavery, I was
awarded a fellowship as a Visiting Research Scholar (VRS) at the Institute
for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), New York University. It was
then that I was able to enjoy focused time to work on the project. ISAW has
continued to support my research by allowing me to maintain a research
affiliation since my time as a VRS. Finally, I have continued working on it
while teaching at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando (RTSO). I
remain grateful to these institutions and the persons affiliated with them for
the ways they supported my research.
A few individuals deserve particular mention here. Jacob Dahl, my doctoral
supervisor, has supported my research in numerous ways and has remained
a mentor and friend through these many years. Thank you.
Betrand Lafont and Vitali Bartash also read earlier drafts of this book.
The project is much better because of each of you.
I also owe thanks to the anonymous reviewers. Thank you for giving of
your time and for providing invaluable insight into this project.
I have presented on aspects of this research at ISAW, Oxford, and Emory
and have also taught two classes on the subject of prisons at RTSO. Thanks
to those who invited me to present on my research and to those who took
my classes.
As I was working on this project, I published some of the findings with
the Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History. I am grateful to the editorial
board for accepting that project. Steven Garfinkle shepherded that article
through the publication process and taught me a lot along the way.
Several people have also contributed to this volume in other ways. Klaus
Wagensonner, who has supported me with friendship, collaboration on
other projects, and numerous photos of tablets through the years, allowed
me to use some photographs in this volume. Eleanor Robson kindly pro-
vided me with permission to use the translation of the “Hymn to Nungal”
included in this volume. Jarett Hall provided me with drawings. Zach
Pennington discussed with me the data related to the length of time people
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x Acknowledgments

spent under guard. He also helped by producing the charts included in this
volume to show the findings more clearly. Thanks to each of you.
I would also like to thank Oxford University Press for accepting this project.
Working with Charlotte Loveridge, my acquistion editor, has been great.
While I owe each of you a debt of gratitude, I accept full responsibility for
any errors that remain.
Finally, I would like to thank Blair, my wife, for her constant friendship
and support and for not once asking when I would be done with it. It is to
our children that I dedicate this volume. I hope they will grow up to be
people who love mercy.
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List of Figures

1. Map of Ancient Mesopotamia. Courtesy of Jarett Hall. 21

2. Obverse of a tablet of the “Hymn to Nungal,” YBC 4667.
Courtesy of the Yale Babylonian Collection. Photography
by Klaus Wagensonner. 30
3. Prisoner bound by ropes depicted on an Akkadian vase from Uruk.
Paris, Musée du Louvre, AO 5683. Rendering courtesy of Jarett Hall. 38
4. Male and female SAG×MA and ERIMa from Jemdet Nasr representing
a human head with a rope and a yoke respectively. Drawing
by J. Nicholas Reid. 39
5. Living in Prison. Obverse of Sumerian tablet from Umma,
YOS 4, 183. Courtesy of the Yale Babylonian Collection.
Photography by Klaus Wagensonner. 51
6. Graph showing number of attestations of imprisonment
during different reigns. 144
7. Histogram depicting days spent under guard during different reigns. 145
8. Omens of Sacrificial Lambs. Old Babylonian tablet, YOS 10, 47.
Courtesy of the Yale Babylonian Collection. Photography
by Klaus Wagensonner. 166
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List of Tables

1. Ur III Prison Texts. 46

2. Prison Rations. 137
3. Captives at Girsu. 138
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Introduction

My house gives birth to a just person but exterminates a false one.

Since there are pity and tears within its brick walls, and it is built
with compassion, it soothes the heart of that person, and refreshes
his spirits.
“Hymn to Nungal,” the prison goddess (lines 103–5)

Ancient Mesopotamia is known for being a land of historical firsts. The title
of Samuel Kramer’s book, History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-­Nine Firsts in
Recorded History,1 illustrates the point well. While Kramer did not include
prisons in his list of firsts, his discussion of another, more benevolent insti-
tution can serve as an example of one of the problems with his approach.
The initial chapter is entitled, “Education: The First Schools.” Yet, scribal
education in Mesopotamia was not exactly like school as we understand it.
Dominique Charpin writes,

The term “school” appears to be misleading, then, in that it confers an

institutional character on the training of scribes. It also suggests a certain
continuity of that activity at a single site. The archeological evidence yields
a different image: that of houses of literati who trained apprentices at
home. All in all, scribal apprenticeships may hardly have been different in
their sociological reality from the other ways of transmitting knowledge.
That is, they occurred primarily within the context of the family.2

Charpin rightly notes that there are a number of ways in which the term
school, as we understand it, blurs certain distinctions about Mesopotamian
scribal training, which might have been very similar to the transmission of
other knowledge such as making pottery. While not strictly a school, at least
as we understand them, the Mesopotamian historical phenomenon surely

1 Kramer 1988. 2 Charpin 2010a: 32.

Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia: Confinement and Control until the First Fall of Babylon. J. Nicholas Reid,
Oxford University Press. © J. Nicholas Reid 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192849618.003.0001
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/04/22, SPi

2 Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia

belongs to a history of education and schools, because it serves as an early

example of humans passing on the knowledge and the skill of reading and
writing from one generation to the next, even if numerous differences exist
and a direct linear connection cannot be made.
History should not be restricted to an assessment of our institutions
against theirs. This is where Charpin’s more nuanced approach is valuable.
How they educated and passed on the craft of reading and writing is more
important than whether or not their schools were like our schools. The
same may be said of prisons. And although it will be discovered that impris-
onment or detention was multifunctional and only had limited intersection
with “crime,” this work shows how religion, power, and politics can shape
ideology attached to very different social-­historical realities.
As such, this book is not about whether Mesopotamia had the first
prisons, as defined predominantly by modern, Western political realities. The
answer to that question hardly deserves a page. Instead, this book is con-
cerned with discovering how imprisonment, as an historical phenomenon,
was employed at the dawn of history.
The editors of the Oxford History of Prisons connect the origins of the
prison to the existence of the cage:

If the cage exists, and if we do not know what else to do with a convicted
criminal who does not need to be killed or whipped or exiled yet who
cannot be allowed to escape adverse consequences for his crime, why not
continue caging? So, we are suggesting, the original justification for the
prison may well have been incapacitation. Whatever else, incarceration
serves to remove a potential offender from the community.3

Such a statement suggests the prison, which they define as an institution of

punishment, finds its origin in the jail as the holding place, which they call
the cage. This book, however, is about what happened before the cage. The
various forms of detention and imprisonment in early Mesopotamia arose
originally out of the desire to gain access to and control labor, resulting in a
multifunctional and multicontextual practice that was adaptable to a variety
of circumstances. Detention in ancient Mesopotamia had limited intersec-
tion with “crime,” a term which will be used loosely to refer to any action
that is considered a breach of a norm that is punishable in some manner.
When those accused of some infraction were detained, the existing social

3 Morris and Rothman 1998: ix.

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Introduction 3

structures for corporal confinement were available to be used in order to

meet the needs of the controlling entity. The need to detain in relation to
judicial process likely only increased with the emergence and expansion of
city states, where detention and transportation were employed to bring
certain high-­level cases before the palace.
This origin of imprisonment helps to elucidate and assess stated or liter-
ary goals about the prison, disentangling the ideology that came to be
attached to imprisonment from the much more complicated realities of the
everyday practice. As will be seen, imprisonment, as a mechanism of
detention that restricts movement, has a long history of being adaptable to a
variety of circumstances for practical reasons and through the attachment
of ideology. Further, it will be evident that imprisonment has been employed
to meet a number of social goals, as it is historically multifunctional. This is
true of then as it is of now. For example, modern imprisonment in the US
where the stated goals of correction and punishment must be squared with
the everyday realities of how imprisonment is employed and what it accom-
plishes is illustrative of this reality.

The Birth and Evolution of the Prison in Modernity

What is it about imprisonment that resulted in it being fully enveloped into

modern society as a just, safe, and productive response to crime? Until
recently, the almost wholesale acceptance of imprisonment has been viewed
as an advancement in humanity. Criminals were taken off the streets.
Society was safer. And punishment was more humane. Convicts had their
needs met as they were taken out of society and provided with the opportu-
nity to reflect on their misdeeds, with many even afforded the chance to re-­
enter normal life, after paying their debt to society. If the system worked, the
end result was a positive change in the prisoner, who through punishment,
isolation, and reflection became a better citizen. In fact, many Americans
believe that imprisonment will result in some form of rehabilitation.4 But
rarely does it work.5 I will limit myself to one example.

4 Jonson, Cullen, and Lux 2013.

5 See discussion of the failure of prisons in Foucault 1995. The original French version was
published in 1975 under the title Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison. Discipline is not the
best translation of surveiller, which deals with the idea of monitoring or surveillance. For a
discussion of the ways in which the prison has been ineffective in rehabilitation, see
Pisciotta 1994.
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4 Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia

On June 6, 2015, a young man named Kalief Browder was found by his
mother hanging from her window-­unit air conditioner.6 He had attempted
suicide on at least four prior occasions, but this time was successful. As a
young, black man growing up in New York City, Browder was accused of
stealing a backpack with some valuable belongings. A few months before his
seventeenth birthday, Browder was arrested and taken to the jail at Rikers,
where he would spend the next three years imprisoned without conviction
or trial. For two of those years, Browder lived in solitary confinement.
Eventually, Browder was unceremoniously released from jail when the charges
were finally dropped. But the damage was done. This is but one example of a
negative outcome of a very broken system that has numerous problems.
Efforts to raise awareness have resulted in what appears to be a general
recognition of the problems of imprisonment, even if most do not seem to
grasp the full scale of the problem.7 Even as many of the problems come
into focus,8 few positive alternatives have been offered,9 leaving the system
broken and largely unchanged.
The nature and effectiveness of imprisonment, as well as the need for
reform, has been a topic of debate for some time, but the study of prisons as
an historical discipline is a relatively recent trend.10

6 See the New Yorker essay: Gonnerman (October 6, 2014 Issue). See too the New York Times
article by Michael Schwirtz and Michael Winerip: “Kalief Browder, Held at Rikers Island for 3
Years Without Trial, Commits Suicide.” https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/nyregion/kalief-­
browder-­held-­at-­r ikers-­i sland-­for-­3 -­years-­w ithout-­t rial-­commits-­suicide.html (accessed
December 16, 2019).
7 The war on drugs was the popular answer for a while. For this important thesis in connec-
tion to the disproportionate incarceration of minorities, see now the updated tenth anniversary
edition Alexander 2020 (originally published in 2010) and The Prison and Punishment below.
See Frost and Clear 2018 for a summary of theories related to mass incarceration.
8 See, for example, Pfaff (2017), who looks at systemic problems such as the politicization
of punishment and issues related to the authority of district attorneys among other things. Pfaff
further demonstrates how violent crimes must also be dealt with to move beyond mass
incarceration.
9 Scholars are paying increasing attention to the ways in which environment, age, and other
factors contribute to the emergence of crime. See, for example, Sampson and Laub (2005), who
apply a life-­course theory to the emergence of crime. For a fascinating article on recidivism, see
Gladwell 2015. Gladwell reports on efforts to trace rates of recidivism before and after
Hurricane Katrina. They found that those who relocated because of Katrina were more suc-
cessful at breaking the pattern of crime emergence than those who returned to their communi-
ties. For suggestions on how to make differences in the existing system, see Bradley (2018), who
offers a number of solutions within prison systems and communities. For a less optimistic per-
spective, see Sim (2009) for an argument for the abolition of prisons.
10 Little was written about prisons from an historical perspective until the 1970s. See Morris
and Rothman 1998: vii.
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Introduction 5

The Prison and Punishment

The historical inquiry into prisons has been dominated by the idea that the
prison is by definition the use of imprisonment for the purpose of punish-
ment. I have written on this topic and even utilized this approach to some
extent, while also attempting to move beyond it.11 The reduction of the
prison to its relationship with punishment intends to reflect modern
notions about prisons particularly in the West, as opposed to related institu-
tions such as jails; a distinction that has nothing to do with ancient
Mesopotamia.
From a methodological perspective, the editors of the Oxford History of
Prisons, although recognizing the limitations of the approach, state that the
punishment of prisons separates such institutions from jails, which are used
for temporary confinement as part of a judicial process or in relation to rel-
atively short stays, typically under a year in the US.12 Other approaches to
the historical inquiry into prisons have also been taken.
David Skarbek, in his book on diversity among approaches to and vari-
ous contexts of imprisonment around the world, states there are certain
fundamental realities belonging to all modern prisons:

All prisons are similar in fundamental ways. They incarcerate people who
are charged with or convicted of crimes. They tend to hold a dispropor-
tionately large number of people from disadvantaged and ethnic, racial,
and other minority communities. Prisoners tend to be more violent, less
patient, less trusting, and less educated than the population outside of
prison. Most prisoners must live and interact with other prisoners; they
have no voluntary exit option. When social scientists think about social
dilemmas, these are some of the most important theoretical characteris-
tics that determine the nature and outcome of the interaction.13

For Skarbek, the prison is for those who are charged and those who are con-
victed, which means he takes a broader view of what constitutes a prison
than the editors of the Oxford History of Prisons. Skarbek, as such, does
not confine his study to the distinctions based on punishment and time,
which are formed largely by the US prison/jail distinction. These central

11 Reid 2016: 81–116. 12 Morris and Rothman 1998: ix.

13 Skarbek 2020: 149.
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6 Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia

characteristics of prisons provide Skarbek with the theoretical basis to

compare diversity among approaches to imprisonment in different locales.
In my prior research on Mesopotamian imprisonment, I sought further
connections beyond punishment such as concepts of reform and adminis-
trative mechanisms, both of which are found in the ideology connected to
modern examples of prisons.14 I expanded my research question to under-
stand functionality, length of imprisonment, and what life was like on the
inside. The goal, however, was not to assert that prisons, as we currently
understand them in the modern Western world, were also present in ancient
Mesopotamia. Instead, I sought to understand how Mesopotamian impris-
onment functioned, while arguing for the relevance of the Mesopotamian
evidence for the broader inquiry into a world history of prisons.
The more time I have spent reflecting on the Mesopotamian phenomenon,
the more I am convinced that the historical inquiry into a world history of
prisons cannot be reduced to the notion of punishment. In other words, the
historical inquiry should not be restricted by the claimed modern motivation
of punishment through imprisonment as a supposed civilized form of
justice when even the modern mechanism is used much more expansively
to include the control of the population or subsets of the population and to
achieve certain religious and political ends.
For example, modern, Western examples of the prison cannot be reduced
to whether they are used for punishment or not. In Britain, all local and
state facilities are called prisons because of current political realities.15
Length of time, while a factor, cannot be viewed consistent either. In places
where the US court system is inundated with cases, the District Attorney’s
office may file extensions, holding non-­convicted individuals for over a
year.16 Finally, those convicted of minor violations, such as simple assault or
public intoxication, can be punished with very short stays in a jail. Further, it
should be noted that in certain cases in the US, the prison has been used to
detain high-­profile suspects while they wait for trial. In the book, Just Mercy,
Bryan Stevenson writes about an example from the 1980s where two
suspects were detained on Death Row in Alabama prior to conviction.17

14 Reid 2016. Many facilities in the US, for example, bear the name correctional facilities.
This relates to the ideology that imprisonment will serve as a crime deterrent. See Tahamont
and Chalfin 2018 and Bonta and Wormith 2018.
15 McConville 1998: 267–87.
16 See discussion in The Birth and Evolution of the Prison in Modernity above on Kalief
Browder for an example of this. On the inefficiencies of the system, see further the recent work
of Pfaff 2017.
17 Stevenson 2015: 52–53, 55–57, 60, 63.
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Introduction 7

While anomalous and unjust, as one person was innocent and the other was
held there to coerce false testimony against the innocent person, it shows
the complicated and multifunctional life of imprisonment, even in our
modern political context. This suggests that intentionality must be squared
with functionality in the history of prisons. All of this together with the
historical process and non-­linear development of imprisonment indicates
that our inquiry should not be restricted merely to the important question
of punishment.
Despite the expressed concepts of just punishment and correction with
modern examples of imprisonment, the functional nature of imprisonment
extends beyond mere punishment and relates to control. With the US, some
theories link mass incarceration to an attempt to control and/or diminish
the rights of minorities through criminalization and imprisonment.18 The
punishment, in a sense, relates to a broader concept of asserting dominance.
The primary goal is not punishment; it is rather the assertion of power
through the mechanism of punishment. It is through this concept of control
that one can further grasp the connection between imprisonment and correc-
tion. If imprisonment is about controlling society and asserting prescribed
norms, the movement from imprisonment to the release of the offender
naturally relates to the goal of submission to those norms as a precondition
for reinsertion into society. The role of power is but one contributing force
to the practice of imprisonment as it exists today.
Whether you love it, hate it, or find yourself somewhere in between, one
of the most impactful books on the study of prisons is written by Michel
Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.19 In it, Foucault
argued that prisons are a modern phenomenon that developed as punish-
ment moved from the spectacle of public, corporal punishment towards the
stated goal of affecting positive change in the person of the prisoner, even if
in reality the assertion of power was the real goal.
Foucault situates his study of the prison in relation to power, knowledge,
and the body.20 Foucault’s work is reasonably easy to understand, yet he
chose to adopt a more literary style, which makes it useful to summarize his
works in relation to reviews that draw out his theses in a concise manner.21

18 See most prominently the work of Alexander (2020), whose work was made famous in
part by the Obama Administration. For an overview of theories relating to mass incarceration
and its potential demise, see Frost and Clear 2018: 104–22.
19 Foucault 1995. 20 Foucault 1995. See Garland 1986: 852.
21 See similar observation in Garland 1986: 849–50.
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8 Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia

David Garland describes Foucault’s conception and use of power as

follows: “the various forms of domination and subordination that operate
whenever and wherever social relations exist.”22 Knowledge is a mechanism
of power. Increased knowledge allows greater control for Foucault. Finally,
as summarized by Garland, for Foucault “the human body is the ultimate
material that is seized and shaped by all political, economic, and penal
institutions.”23 Power, as such, is offered by Foucault as the cause for the shift
in punishment from torture to imprisonment.
Despite numerous great insights found in his work, Foucault’s argument
that the movement from the punishment of the body to the punishment of
the soul for the purpose of control fails to account sufficiently for the grad-
ual shifts in punishment in modern Western society. Thus, although simple
historical explanations can be attractive, since they offer straightforward
answers to complicated developments and changes, historical factors that
lead to major social changes are often more complex and variegated.
As such, Foucault’s account of the birth of the prison has received criti-
cism for his structuralist philosophical approach and his failure to argue his
case on the basis of documentary evidence.24 Further, his notion that power
and control are the driving forces behind the prison fails to recognize many
other factors, which contributed to shifts in approaches to punishment. As
stated by Garland, “The prison may thus be retained for all sorts of reasons—
punitiveness, economy, or a plain lack of any functional alternative—which
have little to do with effective control or political strategy.”25 While Foucault
offers numerous cogent insights into the birth of prison, power for the purpose
of control is but one reason for the modern prison system, and it is precisely
the multifunctional nature and adaptability of prisons that require more
nuanced historical explanation.
Pieter Spierenburg offers a “counter paradigm” and several critiques to
Foucault’s history. Spierenburg criticizes Foucault’s explanation for its
structuralist approach. As such, Foucault treats the historical development

22 Garland 1986: 852. According to von Schriltz, “Foucault’s approach revolves around his
theory that ‘power’—his term for clandestine social forces—shaped history more decisively than
the more visible forces of religion, intellectual currents, or individuals” (von Schriltz 1999: 391).
23 Garland 1986: 852.
24 Spierenburg 1984: viii. See criticism of Foucault’s historical work in Garland 1986:
868–72. See further von Schriltz (1999) who criticized Foucault’s inaccurate portrayal of his-
tory. Von Schriltz goes as far to say, “Nor should it be forgotten that this tale is, in virtually every
major detail, wrong” (von Schriltz 1999: 410). Note further still, Alford, who argues that “the
empirical reality of prison (not the same thing as the discourses of penology) shows Foucault
to be wrong” (Alford 2000: 125).
25 Garland 1986: 876.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/04/22, SPi

Introduction 9

of punishment as a series of sudden changes rather than as gradual ­overlapping

shifts that existed between one approach to punishment and another.26
Further, Spierenburg notes that Foucault fails to discuss the societal devel-
opments that contributed to the changes that took place.27 Most Western
European countries shifted from early modern to nation-­states during the
same periods that saw radical changes in approaches to punishment.
The movement from the early modern to the nation-­state carried with it
a growing distaste for physical suffering.28 The city and county stopped
being treated as “individual entities” in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies. The early modern state continued beyond the revolutionary period
until the nineteenth century. During the nineteenth century, the distaste for
physical torment only increased. “Repugnance to the sight of physical pun-
ishment spread and intensified. In the end the ‘political conclusion’ was
drawn and public executions were abolished. Still the privatization of
repression had been completed.”29 The focus became less on physical tor-
ment as a deterrence for crime. The certainty of being caught through the
presence of policing, a product of the growing central power of the nation-­
state, became the focus of crime deterrence.30 The privatization of punish-
ment continued to have a public presence in the strategic placement of
prisons and across media such as newspapers.31 Other factors should also
be considered.
In the England, the Convict and Penitentiary Acts of 1776 and 1779
resulted in extended periods of imprisonment for criminals “with hard
labour, solitude, and religious instruction in hope that their character could
be amended.”32 When considering the eighteenth century, Laurie Throness
describes a complex overlap similar to what is depicted by Spierenburg, as
described above. There was not an immediate shift from physical punish-
ment to focus on the soul. Instead, Throness discusses conflicting desires
existing in a single historical context in eighteenth-­century England. The
competing desires to afflict and transform the criminal co-­existed in a sin-
gle legal context. “Sentimental choruses about the leniency and humanity
of English law were contradicted by awful conditions in prisons and on

26 Spierenburg 1984: viii. 27 Spierenburg 1984: viii.

28 See Spierenburg 1984: 204–5. 29 Spierenburg 1984: 205.
30 Spierenburg 1984: 205.
31 Spierenburg 1984: 205. Privatization is not being used here to indicate who owns the
prison, which is a matter of no small importance for current debates about imprisonment.
Privatization is being used here to refer to the non-­public nature of punishment with the mod-
ern prison. On private prisons, see Pfaff 2017: 79–104.
32 Throness 2008: 2.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/04/22, SPi

10 Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia

convict ships. Both proportion and disproportion in punishment were

thought to follow the divine pattern.”33 The penitentiary promised to recon-
cile these two, where the severity of punishment, sometimes in solitary con-
finement, placed the prisoner under the gaze of God.34 Through isolation,
prayer, reflection, and religious instruction, the criminal was to be reformed.
The establishment Protestant Church, such as the Church of England, thus
helped to create effectively a “Protestant Purgatory,” which was intended to
spare the criminal from the torments of Hell.35 Throness writes,

As God mercifully, allowed all a lifetime to repent, so long prison sen-

tences in proportion to the gravity of the crime would be a benevolent gift
to serious criminals to allow them enough time to reflect, to produce sor-
row in proportion to their faults, and to demonstrate the fruits of reforma-
tion found in a pattern of industry.36

Since death is final for Protestants, as they do not hold to the doctrine
Purgatory, the Penitentiary became a place where judgment and mercy
could meet. If punishment produces positive change and spares the crimi-
nal from the torments of Hell, then punishment becomes an act of kindness
and moderation, at least conceptually.
The goals of social control and criminal reform can also be seen in the
American example. By 1876, the Elmira Reformatory was opened in New York
state, which marked the beginning of a new approach to crime in the United
States. Twenty reformatories were opened between 1876 and 1920, promising
“benevolent reform: humane, constructive, and charitable treatment.”37
Andrew Pisciotta describes how attempts at instilling a Protestant work
ethic of discipline and self-­control for the purpose of creating good, Christian
citizens, who are productive members of society, failed. Instead, Pisciotta
concludes that “reformatories did not achieve their overt goal of benevolent
reform or their covert aim of benevolent repression.”38 Further, the end result
was not the effective control of criminals that Foucault describes; Pisciotta
states “these institutions did not effectively discipline the dangerous class.”39
Despite the failures of the reform movement, the notion that imprisonment
was an effective means of benevolent punishment that could lead to positive
change in criminals remains reflected in many institutions bearing the

33 Throness 2008: 295. 34 Throness 2008: 295. 35 Throness 2008: 295–300.

36 Throness 2008: 296–97. 37 Pisciotta 1994: 4. 38 Pisciotta 1994: 4.
39 Pisciotta 1994: 5.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/04/22, SPi

Introduction 11

name penitentiary or correction to this day. But power can take mechanisms
that exist for one purpose and use them in other ways, as seen in imprison-
ment in the US.
To understand the more recent historical implementation of imprison-
ment in the US, one has to go back to at least the Civil War.40 The thirteenth
amendment to the US Constitution, which in 1865 abolished slavery,
includes one exception. It reads: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
except as a punishment for ‘crime’ whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their
jurisdiction.” This caveat, which permitted involuntary servitude for crimi-
nals, became exploitable to control minority populations and to gain access
to labor.41
Not long after the abolition of slavery, laws were developed in order to
control the newly freed people.42 After the Civil War, Union troops occu-
pied the Southern States. But with the Compromise of 1877, Southern
Democrats negotiated the withdrawal of federal troops in exchange for not
contesting the Republican presidential victory of Rutherford B. Hayes in the
election of 1876. This left the newly freed black population, which had been
integrated in the South, vulnerable to segregation and violent control in the
years that would follow.
The gains made during the Reconstruction period were curtailed in part
by the Jim Crow laws of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century,
where segregation and discrimination were also implemented by white
vigilante “justice.” As the only legal form of “slavery” remaining in the US,
imprisonment became an effective means of repression and control
of the black population. In her book, The New Jim Crow, Michelle
Alexander writes,

After a brief period of progress during Reconstruction, African Americans

found themselves, once again virtually defenceless. The criminal justice
system was strategically employed to force African Americans back into a

40 This is not to suggest that earlier examples and overlap are not significant. The Civil War,
however, remains a significant historical marker in many developments that would later take
place. Interestingly, the history of the prison begins much earlier in what would become the
US; von Schriltz states, “In 1690, William Penn made prison the sole means of punishment in
Pennsylvania, until the Queen restored the English penal law in 1718” (1999: 398).
41 Note for example Alexander’s discussion of the Thirteenth Amendment in relation to the
Jim Crow laws (2020: 38–44).
42 See, for example, Blackmon 2008.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/04/22, SPi

12 Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia

system of extreme repression and control, a tactic that would continue to

prove successful for generations to come.43

Even after the Civil Rights movement and the end of Jim Crow segregation,
Alexander demonstrates how incarceration extended many of the problems
of the Jim Crow era by continuing disenfranchisement and dehumanization
under the term “criminal” instead of the former overtly racial terminology
employed.44
For Alexander, the now infamous “War on Drugs,” through stiff sentenc-
ing and aggressive policing, resulted in the disproportionate incarceration
of minorities. This insightful work raised awareness of the problem of mass
incarceration in the United States and inspired the popular Netflix docu-
mentary, 13th. Although highlighting a very important contributing factor
to the problem of mass incarceration in the United States, numerous other
problems also exist with the modern American system. As Anthony B. Bradley
writes: “we could legalize all drugs and release everyone from prison
incarcerated for a drug-­related charge and America would still have a mass
incarceration and overcriminalization problem.”45 As such, the US problem
of mass incarceration extends well beyond drugs.
John F. Pfaff is perhaps the most important voice for understanding the
greater problems related to mass incarceration in the United States.
Pfaff writes:

In other words, the single biggest driver of the decline in prison popula-
tions since 2010 has been the decrease in the number of people in prison
for drug crimes. But focusing on drugs will only work in the short run.
That it is working now is certainly something to celebrate. But even setting
every drug offender free would cut out prison population by only about 16
percent. There is a hard limit on how far drug-­based reforms can take us.46

43 Alexander 2020: 40.

44 The disenfranchisement of criminals was one key way in which the Jim Crow laws were
revitalized after they were long gone. According to the study found at sentencingproject.org,
“A record 6.1 million Americans are forbidden to vote because of felony disenfranchisement, or
laws restricting voting rights for those convicted of felony-­level crimes. The number of disen-
franchised individuals has increased dramatically along with the rise in criminal justice popu-
lations in recent decades, rising from an estimated 1.17 million in 1976 to 6.1 million today”
(Uggen, Larson, and Shannon 2016). On these issues, see Alexander 2020.
45 Bradley 2018: 2.
46 Pfaff 2017: 35. It is surprising that Alexander chooses not to engage with Pfaff directly in
her recent tenth anniversary volume of The New Jim Crow when she offers explanations for her
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/04/22, SPi

Introduction 13

Pfaff argues convincingly on the basis of data that the larger structural
problems can hardly be met by merely legalizing drugs; nor can the legaliza-
tion of drugs result in a significant change of demographics in the prison
population.47 So while drug related incarceration remains a major problem,
such reform would only touch on a portion of the related problems of mass
incarceration.
Part of the reason for the complexity of real prison reform is that impris-
onment was used as punishment and as a means of control to deal with
numerous social “problems.” Although vigilante “justice” was also carried
out in public ways during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the pri-
vate nature of punishment through imprisonment was exploitable to meet a
variety of ends but in subtle and hidden ways. This subtlety enables an
ongoing problem of imprisonment, long after the reduction of violent,
public punishment. The jail and prison, as such, became effective mecha-
nisms of oppression, but largely out of plain view, precisely because of
their hidden and adaptable nature. Even if one were to buy into the public
presentation of the goals behind imprisonment, its more discreet mode of
oppression makes it exploitable for numerous ends by any who wield the
power to cage.
This complicated example of modern imprisonment illustrates that when
thinking of a history of prisons and imprisonment, one must look beyond
the stated goals and stated functions of the prison to the actual practice. As
a mechanism of punishment that has a presence but occurs out of plain
sight, imprisonment is adaptable and easily shaped by complex social and
religious factors, since the human cost and impact of imprisonment remain
largely hidden or otherwise easily ignored by obscuring basic human dig-
nity through labels such as “criminals” and under promises of increased
societal safety. In the end, the human cost is deemed acceptable because it
claims to deal with “problem” individuals in service to what are considered
greater societal goals of safety and crime deterrence, and all of this is done
with the claimed hope of the betterment of the criminals themselves.
To summarize, modern imprisonment is not just about punishment. In
the US, imprisonment is used for “deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation,
retribution, and restitution.”48 As such, imprisonment is multifunctional.
This fact requires a broader historical inquiry and suggests that simple and

decision to discuss drugs not violence, since she offers a different picture than the one provided
by Pfaff and other scholars. See in particular Alexander 2020: xxii–xxxi.
47 Pfaff 2017: 26. 48 Bradley 2018: 18.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/04/22, SPi

14 Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia

singular solutions to the problem of mass incarceration will hardly account

for real change. Better conditions in prisons will hardly address dispropor-
tionality among those who end up imprisoned. Disproportionality can
hardly be addressed until money and politics play a smaller role in our jus-
tice system. For example, everyone knows that those who can afford better,
more competent legal representation will receive more favorable outcomes
in the current system than those who are dependent upon public defense,
particularly in contexts where public defendants are weighed down by vol-
ume. Much more could be said.49 But the foregoing discussion of Western
models and the developments attached to them demonstrate the compli-
cated history and adaptable nature of imprisonment. Since prisons are mul-
tifunctional, the historical investigation into imprisonment should not
revolve solely around the question of punishment. The study of early
Mesopotamia provides the opportunity to consider the origins and multi-
functional nature of imprisonment at the dawn of history. The adaptability
of limiting corporal movement through imprisonment to meet numerous
social goals and handle numerous social “problems” has deep roots in his-
tory, even though direct connections and linear developments do not exist.

A Roadmap to This Book

Chapter 1 introduces the period of investigation as well various Assyriological

conventions employed when presenting the primary evidence. This is fol-
lowed by a discussion of the secondary literature to demonstrate the current
state of the discussion about imprisonment in early Mesopotamia. After
discussing the state of research on the topic, I introduce the primary sources
related to Mesopotamian imprisonment by using a hymn to a prison god-
dess. This literary text provides both an entry point into the discussion and
allows me to explain the methodological approach I use to study the sources
related to imprisonment in early Mesopotamia.

49 For the structural problems and many real solutions, see Pfaff 2017 and Bradley 2018.
Among these include less politicization and more oversight of District Attorneys and increased
flexibility with sentencing for judges. For a scathing critique of the effectiveness of reform
movements in relation to imprisonment, see Sim 2009. Sim, who has been very influenced by
Foucault, states that the reform movements have been good for bringing to light many prob-
lems that were hidden but argues that such piecemeal efforts have been incapable of producing
real, positive change.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/04/22, SPi

Introduction 15

In the second chapter, I discuss key terms denoting some form of detention
in ancient Mesopotamia in relation to the socio-­economic status of the
various types of prisoners housed in these centers of detention. What will
be demonstrated is that the overwhelming evidence suggests that most
prisoners were not held because of “crimes.” This is not to suggest that
imprisonment did not relate to disputes and “criminal” activity. Rather,
imprisonment was utilized throughout the judicial process. But this inter-
section between “crime” and detention seems to be a practical extension of
existing mechanisms (administrative bodies, guards, etc.), rather than a
prison in the strict sense.
In the third chapter, I consider how to end up imprisoned in early
Mesopotamia. To do so, I discuss the so-­ called law codes of ancient
Mesopotamia. This is followed by a discussion of the ways in which justice
was administered in everyday life. The overall approach involved retributive
and restitutive actions. While imprisonment was not the normal response
to “crimes,” I discuss the attested infractions that led to imprisonment of
one sort or another. The numerous ways by which a person could be impris-
oned points to the multifunctional nature of prisons. This is to be expected
as ancient Near Eastern space was typically multifunctional.50 Nevertheless,
functionality is kept in view.
Chapter four deals with key aspects of the judicial process in ancient
Mesopotamia. Beyond the use of various forms of evidence in trials, ordeals
are attested. These ordeals were intended to determine cases in reliance
upon the gods, which also provided an element of religious coercion. In
particular, the River Ordeal and the Oath Ordeal are discussed in relation to
the prison goddess. The literary vision of the judicial process is situated in
the context of the actual judicial process as attested in the documents of
practice. The literary vision and awe of the judicial ordeal are also attested
in other literary texts, which receive consideration in this chapter, as well.
The awe-­inspiring context of approaching the king and partaking in ordeals
before the gods were intended to reveal the truth, induce honesty, and
determine guilt. In particular, by considering the judicial process in con-
nection with imprisonment, it is demonstrated that imprisonment in rela-
tion to “crime” largely functioned as a place of holding until trial and until
punishment but not as punishment.

50 See Reid 2016.

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Mutta ehkäpä äitikin ajatteli Elinaa, koska siellä kävi ja hänestä
puhui. On ehken ollut puhetta, että Elina kirjoittaa Ristolle.

Siksikö vain Elina kirjoittikin?

Risto jäi miettimään. Olisi tahtonut olla aivan samalla hetkellä

Särkän pihakamarissa pöydän yli katselemassa Elinaa. Olisi voinut
sanoa arkailematta, että rakastaa häntä suuresti ja lämpimästi.

Rakastiko hän todellakin?

Varmasti. Peruuttamattomasti.

Täällä kasarmin ikävässä hän tunsi, että Elina oli hänelle

kokonainen maailma.

Hän ei ehken ikävöinytkään kotia, vaan Elinaa.

Elina, Elina, kylän ylpein ja somin tyttö, olisitpa tuossa nyt

vierelläni!

Risto kiintyi mielikuvaansa.

Elina siinä loikomassa, tuossa aivan lähellä, ei tässä, vaan Särkän

pihamaan takana, omenapuiden varjossa. Pää käteen nojaten,
toinen käsi nurmea nykkien, silmissä se sama loiste kuin silloin illalla
kylätiellä.

— Mitä sinä katsot? kysyy tyttö ja punainen suu, kuin kypsä marja,
on hienossa hymyssä.

— Sinua vain, sanoo poika. En aio ketään muita katsellakaan.

— Vähänpäs, naurahtaa tyttö. Mitäpä sinä minusta…?

 — Turhan takia… kun ei ole lupa kuitenkaan.

— Kyllähän katsoa saa, virnailee tyttö.

— Mutta ei koskea?

— Niin no, miten senkin kanssa sitten lienee, sanoo tyttö ja

hieman punastuu, katsoo muualle ja taas häneen. Huulet
värähtelevät yhtämittaisessa hymyssä.

— Uskaltaisikohan? kysyy vielä poika, ja tyttö sanoo siihen hiljaa:

—
Eipä näy uskaltavan, ja naurahtaa.

Silloin hän tarttuu siihen pieneen, valkokiharaiseen päähän ja

suutelee punaiselle suulle, suutelee silmiä ja pehmeää poskea. Ei,
hän ottaa koko tytön syliinsä ja pusertaa… miten sillä onkaan
pehmeä povi ja taipuva vyö tein en.

Kasarmilta rämähtää yhtäkkiä harmonikan isoääninen kurnutus, ja

Risto herää kuvitelmistaan. Koti-ikävä riipaisee kipeästi.

— Sepä perhana, että tässä näin lapsettaa. Pitää mennä toisten

joukkoon.

*****

Hanuri läähätti, ja jalkoja lyötiin permantoon niin, että pöly nousi

kattoon. Pojat pyörivät kiinni toisissaan ja hihkaisivat väliin.

— Näytetään sotapojan luonto.

— Kiivaampi tahti ja enemmän ilmaa haitariin!

 Ilma huoneessa sakeni, ja näkyi vain kiivaasti liikkuvia päitä ja
sekaisin sätkyviä jalkoja. Kuului naurua ja hanuri haukkoi kuin
hukkuva henkeä.

Hetken perästä pyyteli joku:

— Lopettakaa jo.

— Ei kuin aamupuolella!

— Ja sitten luhtiin halaamaan ja sieltä suoraan kynnökselle!

— Kiväärillä kyntämään!

Risto meni mukana, löi saappaan kantaa lattiaan ja ähkäisi. Ei

voinut mitään koti-ikävälle ja sille, että kasarmi tuntui
vastenmieliseltä.

Olisi saanut olla tappelemassa! Täällä oli aina kaikenlaista

matalaa kuultavana ja nähtävänä. Rivous oli poikien kesken yleistä
puheessa ja muussa, ja sitten punaiset akiteeresivat tovereitaan.

Katunaiset olivat kuin takiaiset poikien kimpussa yhtä mittaa.

Kaikelle tälle ei voinut päällystö eikä kukaan mitään. Jos heille

sanoi siitä, niin koti-ikävää syyttivät ja kirosivat, että täytyyhän jotain
huvia olla.

Tässä oli jotain takaperoista, joka olisi vaatinut muutosta. Kasarmit

ainakin maaseudun terveeseen ympäristöön! Pojat silloin siellä
asemalla eivät turhaa puhuneetkaan. Niin se pitäisi olla. Kaupungit
ovat myrkkyä sotaväelle, mutta maaseudun terve elämä, se olisi
toista. Miksei tätä ymmärretä?
 Ristolle tuli tästä kiire puhumaan toveriensa kanssa.

— Kuulehan, Ville, se olisi jotain, jos nämä kasarmit olisivat

maalla.
Kaupunkien ilma ei sovi sotapojille.

— Samaa olen minäkin ajatellut. Täällä tukehtuu.

— Ja sitten muutenkin… nuo pahuksen ilonaiset, vievät rahat ja

voimat.

— Sepä se. Siellä maalla niitä ei olisi kärkkymässä joka

askeleella.

Puhuttiin poikien nais-seikkailuista.

— Joko sinäkin olet ollut mukana? kysyi Risto toveriltaan.

Ville vastaili vältellen.

— Vaikea niistä on joskus eroon päästä. Koti-ikävää sillä

semmoisella monikin haihduttelee.

Pojat olivat tulleet pihalle ja kävelivät hetkisen vaieten. Sitten sanoi

Risto:

— Sinullakin pitäisi olla joku, jota ajattelisit… semmoinen hyvä

tyttö siellä kotopuolessa.

Ville näytti vakavalta.

— Eipä sitä minulla ole. Sinulla ehkä on, koskapa siitä tiedät
puhua.
 Risto hymähti suopeasti.

— … niistä niin tiedä… tytöistäkään.

— Mutta jotain sellaista kuitenkin on? uteli Ville.

— On kyllä, mutta ei mitään varmaa vielä.

— Siksipä sinä et muiden mukana kuljekaan kaupungilla. Olisipa

minullakin…

— Tahtoisitko sitä?

— Kyllä. Ei minua yhtään poikien kuhertelu miellytä.

Pojat olivat istuneet kasarmiaitauksen kulmaukseen. Ville ei

tahtonut enää kysellä toverinsa salaisuuksia. Näytti niin kuin tämä
siinä istuessaan olisi ollut hyvin kaukana. Ehkäpä oli sen luona, joka
oli hänen suojelushengettärensä, hyvä tyttönsä, joksi hän sitä nimitti.

Jospa hänelläkin olisi sellainen tyttö, jota voisi ajatella ja rakastaa.

Melkein kokemattomana kaikesta oli hän nyt joutunut maailmaan.
Koti-ikävä poltti ja mieltä jäyti häpeä, että oli kerran tullut
langenneeksi huonon naisen pauloihin.

Puistatti sitä ajatellessa, mutta samalla tuntui veressä outo

kipenöinti. Oliko se himo, joka niin orasti?

Miksi hän ei voinut sitä sanoa suoraan Ristolle, tunnustaa, mietti

Ville. Tiesihän Risto ja ehkä näkikin miten oli. Nyt ehkä ajattelee, että
en tahtonut olla suora häntä kohtaan.

Ville tarkasteli Ristoa, joka näytti olevan omissa ajatuksissaan.

Voisihan hän sanoa vastakin.
 Risto ei kuullut enää poikien jyskettä. Hän oli Särkän
pihakamarissa ja puheli tytölle, jota hän nyt koti-ikävän kiihdyttävällä
voimalla rakasti.
IV.

Voi miten kuuma ja pölyinen oli kaupunki kesäkuun helteessä.

Kahdessa pienessä puistossa oli varjoisaa, mutta sinne oli harvoin
tilaisuutta mennä. Harjoitukset olivat keskipäivällä ja aamuin ja illoin
oli muutakin tehtävää kuin puistoissa kuljeksia.

Risto ei sinne halunnut mennä. Siellä oli ne ainaiset ilolinnut

virnistelemässä ja akiteeraamassa.

Ville kävi siellä joskus iltaisin ja kertoi mitä oli nähnyt ja kuullut.

Laitakaupungin tytöt siellä kieppuivat poikien kintereillä ja joukolla

puhuttiin rivouksia ja vuoroin politiikkaa.

Urakalla siellä koetettiin kiihoittaa kapinahenkeä. Kylvö menikin

usein suotuisaan maaperään. Tasamielisetkin pojat alkoivat
mielessään kapinoida. Miksi nyt oli perustettu sotalaitos, kun siitä oli
jo niin kauan saatu olla rauhassa? Miksei saanut olla edes kuuminta
kesän aikaa kotonaan?

Ja sitten koti-ikävä pakotti hakemaan näistä katuperhosista ystäviä

ja rakastajattaria. Nämä laitakaupungin rikkaruohot saivat korvata
pojille kaukaisen kotikylän siskon ja mielitietyn.
 Keskipäivän aurinko paahtoi huumaavasti. Pojat palasivat
harjoituksista. Velttoina ja väsyneinä raahustivat jalat katukivitystä.

Risto naurahteli itsekseen. Tämäpä oli sotapoikien ryhtiä. Muistui

mieleen suojeluskunnan harjoitukset siellä maalla, kotikylässä.
Jäsenissä tuntui teräkseltä ja tanner kumisi jalkojen alla. Mutta siellä
olikin kaikki se kotoinen, joka innosti ja kohotti. Täällä ei ollut muuta
kuin hämärä tunto, että täyttää velvollisuutensa.

Jos ei olisi ollut mitään mustaa ja tympäisevää olemassa, jos

kaikki olisivat olleet yksimielisiä tehtävänsä tärkeydestä, niin ehkä
olisi voinut paremmin säilyttää ryhtinsä.

Nyt ei tullut sotapojan luonto näkyviin muussa kuin

reuhaamisessa.

Yksilöiden innostus laimeni joukkohengen painosta.

Minkäpä sille… Pääsisihän täältä vielä kotikunnaillekin temppuja

tekemään. Saisihan siellä niinkuin ennenkin nähdä ja tuntea, että
vielä on isäin henkeä pojissa ja heissä maalla tuki ja turva ja
järjestyksen vahvat vartijat. Näihin järjestöihin kuului jäseniä kaikista
yhteiskuntaluokista, ja oli turvallista tuntea ja tietää, että nämä
tulisivat säilymään kaikesta vastustuksesta huolimatta niin kauan
kuin lain pyhyys ja oikeuden tuntokin säilyisivät maassa.

*****

Päivä oli jo illoillaan. Omassa syrjäisessä paikassaan luki Risto

kirjettä. Se oli Elinalta.

Tänään olikin hänellä kuin juhlapäivä. Päällystöltä oli hän saanut

ilmoituksen, että hänen pyytämänsä kolmen päivän loma oli
myönnetty, käydäkseen kotonaan, jossa vanha isä sairasteli. Ja nyt
sitten kirje Elinalta.

*****

»Täällä ovat tuomet vielä kukassa ja pihlajatkin avaavat jo

kukkiaan», kirjoitti Elina. »Kohta onkin jo juhannus ja pojat ovat
käyneet jo monena iltana kylän yhteistä kokkoa rakentelemassa.
Sinä vain et taida sille kokolle päästä. Kuulin kyllä siskoltasi, että
olet lomaa pyytänyt, josko sitten saanet.»

»Kävin Majamäessä joku päivä sitten. Isäsi valitteli sairauttaan ja

äitisi tuntui ikävöivän sinua. Kaunista sielläkin oli. Pihapihlajat olivat
jo kukassa yleensä, vaikka meillä näkyy vasta muutamia auenneita.
Kelpaa siellä kerran nuorikon liikkua, kuka sitten lieneekin. Jos
sieltä pääset kotonasi käymään niin pistäypä Särkänkin yksinäistä
tyttöä katsomassa.»

Kirje sai kuumat veret Riston poskille. »Kelpaa siellä nuorikon

liikkua.» Elina siis hyväksyi Majamäen tulevaksi kodikseen. »Kuka
sitten lieneekin.» Eihän Elina hänelle muutoin niin kirjoittaisikaan, jos
ei kerran välittäisi hänestä.

Ei ollutkaan enää kuin muutamia päiviä juhannukseen. Hän

pääsee kotiin.
Ja sitten kylän kokoille, vaikka Elina ei osaa odottaakaan.

Ville huhuili Ristolle ja tuli kohta reippain askelin hänen luokseen.

— Kuulehan, minä olen saanut heilan itselleni ja vieläpä

paremmanpuoleisen, sanoi hän heittäytyen nurmelle loikomaan. —
En ole siitä vielä ennen sinulle puhunut ja vasta minä sen sainkin
selville eilen illalla siellä tanssiaisissa.

— Ooho, pikku Kaarin, niinkö?

— Niin juuri. Eikä olekaan liian pieni, melkein yhtä suuri kuin sinun
Elinasikin.

— Mistä sinä tiedät, että se Elina on?

— No kyllähän minä… häneltähän sait juuri kirjeenkin. Suotta sinä

sitä salailet. Sanoinhan tuon minäkin.

— Olkoonpa sitten onneksi. Kaarin taitaa tosiaankin olla kunnon

tyttö, siltä hän ainakin näyttää.

— Niin ja hemmetissä, kun hän on käynyt koulujakin ja isä kuuluu

olevan rikas kuin peijakas. Kelpaa sitä kerran näyttää
kotikyläläisillekin.

— Kyllä vain… rikkaus tuo ei nyt sinulle liene pääasia.

— Ei olekaan. Tulinpahan vain muuten kehaisseeksi.

— Ja oletko ihan varma asiastasi? Omasta puolestani en

kaupunkilaistyttöjä, vaikka kunnollisiakin ovat, pidä oikein varmoina.
Ovat semmoisia hepsankeikkoja… Tätä nyt en osaa sanoa, ja
toivonkin sinulle kaikkea hyvää.

Toveruksilla oli paljon puhuttavaa toisilleen. Kumpainenkin odotti

tulevia päiviä valoisina ja onnen täysinä.
V.

Majamäessä oli tehty puhdasta juhannukseksi. Valkoisena hohtelivat

tuvan ja eteisvälikön permannot. Puuttuivat vain koivut pirtin nurkista
ja portailta ja pihlajan kukat seinän raoista.

Rehevät vainiot uneksivat hiljaisessa suvituulessa. Keskikesän

henki ympäröi taloa ja tanhuvia.

Vanha Majamäki istui kamarinsa sängyn laidalla ja poltteli

pitkävartista piippuaan, isän perintökalua. Ikkuna oli auki ja siitä toi
tuuli sisään ruispellon tuoksua. Lupaavana se siinä järveen
viettävällä rinteellä huojahteli tuulen henkäilyjen sitä hyväillessä.

Majamäki oli sairastellut, mutta tunsi nyt jo itsensä virkeämmäksi.

Ehkäpä miehuuden voimat vielä voittaisivat lähentelevän
vanhuuden. Hän olikin jo kuudenkymmenen. Ei ihme, jos voimat
joskus loppuivatkin ja sairaus tavoitteli. Vanhemmiltaan oli hän
perinyt heikon ruumiinrakenteen, joka ei enää tahtonut kestää
ankarassa työssä.

Mutta pojalla oli vahva ruumis ja hyvä terveys. Ristosta tulisikin

vankempi suvun jatkaja kuin entisistä Majamäkeläisistä. Pääsisi nyt
vain kotiin sieltä sotapalveluksesta. Joutaisi olla ainoa poika talon
töitä johtamassa ja itse tekemässä. Kunpa vain tulisi miehenä
takaisin. Kuuluvat hurjaa elämää siellä elävän. Liehän noissa
kuitenkin sellaisiakin, jotka pysyvät erossa semmoisesta.

Saara tuli kamariin.

— Minullapa on uutisia. Risto on saanut loman ja tulee ehken

tänään kotiin.

— Mistä sitä kuulit?

— Niemelän poika on tullut eilen kotiin, lomalle hänkin, ja kuuluu

sanoneen.

— Mistä ne nyt sitten ehti tämän matkan päästä tietoja kuljettaa.

Hyvä on. Joutuisi poika iltasaunalle. Sano renkilöille että koivuttavat
Ristonkin kamarin.

— Kyllä siitä nyt huoli pidetään.

*****

Päivä oli jo illoillaan. Risto nojasi kotinsa peltoveräjään ja katseli

vainioita ja taloa niiden keskellä. Majamäki oli kaunis. Ei sitä Elina
suotta kiittänytkään. Eikä sitä ollut jakamassa hänen kanssaan muut
kuin Alli, hänen ainoa siskonsa.

Talosta kuului ääniä. Tytöt siellä lypsytarhassa pölisivät. Äiti kuului

heille jotain huutavan. Miehet palasivat hakatietä pihaan. Ovat kai
olleet viemässä hevosia hakaan. Vieläkö lienee isä sairas?

Pian mennään saunaan ja hänkin tästä joutuu. Mitähän, jos tuota

ruispellon ojaa myöten puikkisi salaa saunaan, riisuisi hissuksiin ja
juoksisi lavoille miesjoukkoon. Saattaisivatpa nostaa aikamoisen
porinan. Miehet pitivät joka-ainoa hänestä ja ikävällä oli erottu.

Ja sitten saunan jälkeen on ehtooateria ja kokoille meno. Sinnekin

voisi mennä salaa.

Saisi katsella kenen kanssa Elina puhelee ja tanssii.

Elina ja tuleva juhannusyö toi sykäyttäviä ajatuksia. Kokoilta saa

palata Elinan kanssa Särkkään ja mennä hiljaisen pihamaan yli aitan
portaille tahi pihakamariin. Kamarin ikkunalla kukkii verenpisara ja
kiertoheinä. Ikkuna on auki ja ulkona valoisa yö, Elina istuu hänen
polvellaan ja hän saa ensikerran suudella hänen punaista, sievää
suutaan. Juhannusyö. Tälläkertaa se on varmaan hänen
juhannusöistään ihmeellisin ja ihanin.

Risto lähti pihaan. Portaissa tomahti Alli häntä vastaan.

— No, siinähän sinä olet!

— Tässähän minä… osasitkos odottaa?

— No jo toki, kun kertoivat, että tulet.

— Kuka kertoi? Kun minä ihan salaa meinasin…

Miehiä tuli tuvasta alusillaan saunaan menossa.

— Katsos poikaa, eikös tullut!

— Jopas vain. Tulehan saunaan.

— Kaupungin likoja huuhtomaan.

 Joutui siihen äitikin lämpimästi hymyilemään ja puhtaita vaatteita
tarjoamaan.

Ristoa melkein liikutti vastaanoton lämpimyys. Jokainen oli kai

kaivannut häntä, niin kuin hänkin kotia.

Vanhan Majamäen kasvot kirkastuivat, nähdessään poikansa

kotiutuneena.
Kohta nähtiin heidät rinnakkain astuvan pihatietä saunaan.

— Täyden se kasvoi tuo pelto taas rukiin, virkkoi Majamäki

pojalleen kuin nuortuneena silmäillen ruispeltoa siinä polun vierellä.

— Niin näkyy… Hyvältä näyttävät suvitouotkin.

— Kävisitpä suota katsomassa, siellä se on kaura vasta. Ja

ensikertainen heinäkin on nyt jo kuin seinää, olisi siellä sinunkin
mukava olla heinäaikana.

— Kyllähän se… on nyt vain se kurssi käytävä.

— Niin on. Ja kunnialla on käytäväkin. Tulisit vain kunnon miehenä

sieltä takaisin. Majamäet ovat olleet aina kunnian miehiä kaikessa.

Risto ymmärsi hyvin, mitä isänsä tarkoitti. Kerrottiin, että Majamäet

olisivat olleet erilaisia siinäkin, etteivät poikavuosien hurjasteluja ja
liikoja naisseikkailuja suvainneet.

Isä kai odotti hänestä samanlaista suvun jatkajaa, kuin itsekin oli.
Eikä hänellä vielä mitään sellaista ollutkaan, ettei olisi voinut katsoa
isäänsä rehellisesti silmiin. Kasarmilla oli hän hyvin seikkailuista
säilynyt. Olihan hänellä Elina, jota ajatellen voi välttää
kasarmielämän kiusaukset.
VI.

Kokko loimusi työntäen tulikielekkeitä ilmaan ja sen ympärillä

tanssittiin. Risto oli löytänyt sopivan piilopaikan itselleen ja katseli
sieltä ilonpitoa. Elina oli tullut hieman myöhästyneenä ja tanssiin
osaa ottamatta katseli riutuvaa kokkoa.

Valkoinen leninki oli hänellä ja tukka sitaistu niskaan. Kun häntä

käytiin tanssiin pyytämässä, ei hän lähtenyt. Hymähti vain ja istui
ajatuksissaan. Joku taas lasketteli sukkeluuksia Särkän ylpeästä
tyttärestä, mutta niille tyttö vain hymyili.

Risto ei malttanut enää, vaan jätti piilopaikkansa.

Kylläpäs tytön silmät suurenivat. Punastuipas, merkitsi Risto

hyvillämielin.

— No siinähän sinä olet, eikä kukaan puhu mitään, etkä itsekään!

— Vastahan minä tulinkin, kävin vain Majamäessä saunomassa.

Kylän tytöt supattelivat: »Tuoko Risto se nyt olikin Särkän tyttären

valittu.» Pojat silmäilivät voittajaa hieman ylimielisesti. Oliko Risto
sitten heitä kaikkia parempi. Useampi heistä oli käynyt
koputtelemassa Elinan ovilla turhaan, ja tämä nyt sitten tulee ja ottaa
kuin omansa.

Tanssi oli keskeytynyt, kunnes Risto aloitti sen uudelleen Elinan

kanssa.

*****

Polku kiemurteli lepikkoahojen poikki. Risto eteni hitaasti tyttönsä

kanssa hämärää polkua. Kumpikin tunsi olevansa kuin uuden
maailman kynnyksellä ja odotti milloin ovi aukeneisi siihen suureen
ja salaperäiseen.

Lähellä Särkän tilusten aitaa tuli korkea koivikko. Sen keskellä oli
hiljainen hämärä. Sinikellot ja kurjenpolvet nuokkuivat ruohossa ja
maasta kohosi voimakas yrttien tuoksu.

Tyttö seisahti sanatonna ja jäi kuin kuuntelemaan hiljaisuutta.

Poika seisoi hänen lähellään ja tunsi tytön hiusten ja ihon tuoksun.
Se huumasi nuoren veren ja hän kiersi kätensä tytön ympärille ja
puristi hänet lujaan syleilyyn.

— Elina, Elina, oletko sinä minun?

Tyttö kurotti huulensa pojan suudeltaviksi ja muuta vastausta ei

poika kaivannutkaan.

*****

Särkän pihamaalla ja nurkissa viipyi juhannusyön valo, mutta

pihakamarissa oli hiljainen hämärä. Nuoret menivät pihamaan yli
kamariin, jossa kielon tuoksu lemahteli voimakkaana.
 Ei puhuttu mitään. Tyttö jäi seisomaan ikkunapieleen nojaten ja
poika keinussa istuen katseli häntä. Suonet takoivat rajusti. Hän
olikin oikeastaan syleillyt ja suudellut naista ensi kerran, ainakin sillä
tavoin kuin nyt. Ensi otteesta tunsi hän, että tyttö syöpyi kuin ihana
myrkky hänen vereensä.

Poika katseli yhä tyttöä. — Onko hän todellakin noin kaunis. En

ole sitä ennen niin huomannutkaan kuin nyt. Täyteläinen povi ja
lantion kaari, kaula hennosti kaareva ja poski kuin maitoa, vaalean
tukan ympäröimänä. Veri läikähteli nyt niillä maidonvalkoisilla
poskilla.

Tyttö kääntyi ja tuli hänen syliinsä. Aurinko nousi. Sen lämpimät

säteet värähtelivät ikkunassa, kukkien lehdillä ja nuorten
kirkastuneilla kasvoilla. Tyttö kurotti uudelleen ja taas uudelleen
huulensa pojan suudeltaviksi.

— Nyt minä tiedän, mitä on antaa koskematon nuoruutensa

koskemattomalle niinkuin sinä olet, virkkoi tyttö.

— Niin minäkin… kun saa antaa kaikki vain sille yhdelle.

Minuutit lipuivat hiljaa ohi. Ulkona puistossa helisi lintujen kuoro.

Aurinkoinen, sadunomainen juhannuspäivä oli alkamassa.

— Vielä tämä päivä ja tuleva yö, ja sitten sinun on mentävä.

Minulle tulee niin ikävä sinua, puheli tyttö. Lupaatko minulle yhden
pikkuisen asian, pyyteli hän.

— Lupaan mitä vain pyydät.

— Se on kyllä niin lapsellista, mutta kuitenkin…

 Tyttö veti esiin medaljongin, joka oli hienossa nauhassa hänen
povellaan. Siinä hän oli kantanut äiti-vainajansa kuvaa. Hellävaroen
irroitti nyt tyttö kuvan medaljongista, suuteli sitä ja vei sen pöydälle.

— Äiti saa luovuttaa nyt sinulle paikkansa. Sinä annat kuvasi

tähän ja minä kannan sitten sitä povellani nukkuessanikin.

Pojan silmät kostuivat. Hän ei tietänyt tätä ennen, että rakkaus

olisi näin suurta ja syvää.

*****

Seuraavana päivänä puhui Risto tästä isälleen. Eihän asialla olisi

ollut niin kiirettä, mutta olihan puhuttava kuitenkin. Ja Ristolla oli jo
pienuudesta pitäen ollut tapana puhua kaikista asioistaan
viivyttelemättä isälleen.

— Se on oikein, että puhuit siitä, sanoi vanha Majamäki pojalleen.

— Nyt minäkin olen rauhallisempi sinun suhteesi, kun tiedän, että
sinulla on täällä tyttö, jota ajattelet. Majamäet ovat aina valinneet sen
yhden ja ainoan ja sen myöskin pitäneet. Seikkailuhalu ei ole
koskaan vetänyt suvun verta sellaiseen, jota olisi saanut jälestäpäin
katua. Ja nyt kun olet saanut semmoisen tytön kuin Elina, niin kai
sinussa on miestä myöskin pitämään hänet.

Risto katseli isäänsä, joka istui siinä kamarinsa pöydän päässä

vakavin ja juhlallisin ilmein. Harmahtavat hiukset oli huolellisesti
kammattu jakaukselle ja vanhanaikuinen verkaliivi oli tiukasti
napitettu kiinni. Tulisikohan enää hänestä noin kunnioitusta
herättävää suvun päämiestä, kuin isä tuossa oli?
 — Särkän ukkokin pitää siitä, että sinä otat Elinan. Siellä on
kulkenut yhtämittaa sulhasina kaiken maailman huijareita,
komeitakin ja rikkaita, mutta tyhjin toimin ovat saaneet mennä samaa
tietä kuin ovat tulleetkin. Kiitä vain onneasi, poika, ja koeta säilyttää
se.

Risto ihmetteli, ettei tuntenut erikoista ylpeyttä siitä, että oli saanut
Särkän tyttären omakseen. Suurta ja lämmintä mielihyvää vain. Oli
niin kuin luonnollista, että Särkän tytär kuului hänelle. Ei sen vuoksi,
että hänen sukunsa oli vanhaa ja kunnioitettua, vaan siksi, että heillä
oli niin paljon keskinäistä ymmärtämystä, joka kai olisi paras takuu
rakkauden kestävyydestä. —

Majamäki oli iloinen voidessaan puhella poikansa kanssa yhdestä

jos toisestakin. Hän olikin saanut olla puhetoverin puutteessa.
Kukapa jouti kesäisinä päivinä hänen luonaan olemaan, kun sairaus
esti liikkumasta kartanolla ja työmailla. Saarallakin oli
emäntätehtävänsä ja Allia ei huvittanut puhella vakavan isänsä
kanssa.

Ukko oli yhä vieläkin harras suojeluskunta-aatteen kannattaja.

Paikkakunnan suojeluskunta olikin kutsunut hänet
kunniajäsenekseen ja siitä tuntui hän olevan mielissään.

Majamäki oli kysellyt pojaltaan kasarmioloista ja hengestä siellä ja

kun Risto kertoi siitä, virkkoi hän:

— Niin, onhan se sotaväki olemassa ja täytyyhän sitä pitää, mutta

niin minusta tuntuu, että suojeluskunnissa meillä sittekin on maan
tuki ja turva. Jos sen asian hyväksi tehtäisiin niin paljon työtä, kuin
sotaväessä, niin meillä olisi puolustuslaitos, jota ei voittaisi mikään.
Ahkerasti ne täälläkin harjottelevat. Meiltäkin ovat jo kaikki miehet
mukana. Harjotus-iltoina lopetetaan työt paria tuntia aikaisemmin.

Risto tunnusti olevansa samaa mieltä isänsä kanssa ja kertoi

olevan sotapojissakin paljon samanmielisiä. Sen syyn takia olivat
vastenmielisesti kasarmissa.

— Se on väärin tavallaan, että vastenmielisesti… virkkoi

Majamäki. Kun kerran se on lain kautta niin laadittu, niin laki on
pidettävä pyhänä, niinkauan kuin se muuttuu. Vaikkapa asiat ovatkin
niin kuin tässä puhuttiin, niin kapinahenkeä ei ole siltä kannatettava.
Ja sekin semmoinen, vaikkakin omassa mielessään, on
kapinoimista.

Ei puhuttu siitä enää. Risto sanoi lähtevänsä käymään Särkässä.

Aamulla varhain pitäisi olla jo kasarmille menossa, eikä sitten enää
kerkiäisi.

— Sano terveisiä Särkän ukolle ja pyydä käymään täällä luonani.

Onkin nyt paljon Juhanin kanssa puhuttavaa.

*****

Keskipäivän helteessä nuokkuivat heilimöivät ruispellot kylän

vainioilla. Taloissa oli hiljaista. Visertelevät pääskyparvet lentelivät
vain pihamaitten yllä. Risto vaelteli onnellisissa mietteissään kylän
läpi taloon, jossa tyttö jo kiihkeästi odotti häntä.