The Vow of M utiya, King of Shekhna * 1

Vows to the gods and the grief they create when they are neglected ( or tardily fulfilled) have generated a literary theme that was well-cultivated in antiquity and is nicely studied in our time. In honoring my beloved teacher Michael Astour, I want to launch into this topic by focusing on an Old Babylonian letter found at Tell-Leilan by a Yale expedition. The letter (L87-1317) is edited in an article by Jesper Eidem who kindly placed page-proofs at my disposaI.2 It was sent to Til-Abnu (also known as Tillaya) who ruled Apum, a region in the eastern portion of the Khabur triangle, from his capital Shekhna, now Tell-Leilan. A number of eponymal dates plus a synchronism with Babylon allow us to slot our letter around 1745 B.C.E., so within a few years after the death of Hammurabi of Babylon