Les inégalités sociales en Mésopotamie : quelques précautions de vocabulaire

The Babylonian and Assyrian law collections have long been our only sources of information about the various Mesopotamian social groups. Several provisions from the Code of Hammurabi, the Laws of Eshnunna (18th century BCE) and the Middle Assyrian laws (12th century BCE) provide for punishments or damages in case of various offenses, the intensity of which varies according to the status or rank of the protagonists. Along with the classic distinction between free people and slaves as a basis for an assessement of the damage and of its sanction, a third and intermediate category has been added, formed by the so-called half-free persons named muškēnum in Babylonia and aššurāiau in Assyria. Their legal status and social condition have been analyzed in the light of the law collections, of other examples in Antiquity and of the slighting value of the French «mesquin», derived from the Babylonian muškēnum. Thanks to the new material published in the last twenty years, the hypothesis of a tripartite organization of the Babylonian and Assyrian societies has been dropped