In a new book about Babylonian laborers of the 14th and 13th
centuries, B.C., assistant professor Jonathan Tenney asserts
that whether they were slaves or not, they lived in nuclear
families. They got married, had children, made beer. Although
they lived 3,500 years ago in Nippur, Babylonia, in many ways
they seem like us. Whether they were also slaves is a hotly
contested question which Jonathan Tenney, assistant professor of
ancient Near Eastern studies, addresses in the newly released
"Life at the Bottom of Babylonian Society: Servile Laborers at
Nippur in the 14th and 13th Centuries, B.C." (Brill). The book
is based on Tenney's dissertation at the University of Chicago,
for which he received the 2010 Dissertation of the Year Award by
the American Academic Research Institute in Iraq. Some previous
scholars identified the 8,000-strong group of government workers
as temple employees. "But the problem is the records included
food for little babies, which didn't make much sense," says
Tenney, who joined the Co