The Status of a Repudiated Spouse: A New Interpretation of Kraeling 7 (TAD B3.8)

The longest Elephantine contract is the “document of wifehood” (spr ʾntw) drawn up between Ananiah son of Haggai and Zaccur son of Meshullam. Numbering forty-five lines and measuring 30 cm wide by 92 cm high, it had been cut apart at the time of acquisition and was painstakingly put together, like a jigsaw puzzle, over a long period of time and in stages, both in 1949 by Anthony Giambalvo of the Department of Egyptian Art of the Brooklyn Museum and almost forty years later, in February, 1987, by Porten and Ada Yardeni. It was first published by Emil G. Kraeling in 1953 and then in 1989 by Porten and Yardeni with handcopy. The contract stipulated the terms, rights and obligations, and pecuniary consequences attendant upon the marriage of Ananiah to Jehoishma daughter of Anani son of Azariah and his wife Tamet (TAD B3.4:18), formerly handmaiden of Meshullam father of Zaccur (TAD B3.3:3, 3.6:2-4). As successor to Meshullam's estate, Zaccur possessed residual rights to Jehoishma and her mother Tamet (TAD B3.6:11-15). Since Zaccur provided the dowry and relinquished some of his rights to Jehoishma, it is with him and not with Jehoishma's natural father (Anani son of Azariah) that the contract was drawn up.