Lands, Estates and āl-Yāhūdu

The publication of the āl-Yāhūdu archives brought forth a growing interest in the nature of the archive, its onomasticon and other studies concerning the local administration and historical events. Due to the fact that the original find spot of the tablets is unknown, there is a need to extract geographical pieces of evidence from the corpus, in order to better define the area where these settlements existed and what was their status under the Babylonian and Achaemenid rule. Pearce and Wunsch, who published the archive, concluded that the geographical horizon of Judahtown is to the east and southeast of Babylon, beyond the city of Nippur, bordering on the Tigris River in the east and the marshlands in the south. In the following paper I will investigate some of the other evidence for the location of āl-Yāḫūdu, and illustrate the geographical setting in detail. This survey will allow to better define the connection between the āl-Yaḫūdu archives and other Babylonian archives that mention Judeans in their geographical horizons. Furthermore, the conclusions of this survey will present a new suggestion regarding the status of the lands where āl-Yaḫūdu was situated and shed some light on the officials responsible for the town.