Athar Alrafedain

There are many Akkadian texts from the ancient Babylonian period mentioning a country called “Yassan”, located in northern Mesopotamia. It is not well known in recent studies, and where it’s located, what is its geographical framework, who governed it, and what is the nature of its relationship with the contemporary political entities neighboring it? This is the problem that the research aimed to clarify; Depending on the available textual evidence.
It became clear that Yassan is the name of a country on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, north of the town of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, which played an important role in the conflicts and alliances that arose in the region of Syrian Jazīra and Mount Sinjar, during the reign of Zimri-Lim king of Mari, and after the collapse of the Kingdom of Mari, and the division of the region into many small political entities.
The research traces the history of the country during the 18th century B.C., during the reign of two kings in Razama (North), which was its capital, and they are known in the texts of Mari, Šubat-Enlil and Qaṭṭara, and it shows the nature of its relations with the neighboring political forces, as well as distant ones such as the Kingdom of Yamḫad / Ḫalab "Aleppo" which her king (Ḫammurabi) had begun to gain loyalists, and extend his influence in those areas, and trying to precede the expansion of the influence of Ḫammurabi king of Babylon there.

This study sheds light on the royal edicts issued in the Late Old Babylonian Period, specifically from the era of the reign of the Babylonian king Ammi - Saduqa (1646-1626 BC), which are orders and instructions issued by this king to treat the deteriorating economic conditions in an instant and fast manner. And it seems that these royal edicts represent a special permit or legislative regulation that has been widely popular since the second part of the Old Babylonian Period (2002-1595) B.C.

Between the finds discovered in the city of Pekasi and currently preserved in the treasuries of the Iraqi Museum was numbers of small tablet, its dimensions usually not exceeding three centimeters, with a dark black color, often invisible to the cuneiform signs written on it, all of it discovered during the excavations in Pekasi, "Till Abu-Antik" during five seasons. It seems that most of the tablets under study in this research belong to one person named (d MAR.TU-i-bi),that is meaning his own archive, as he hired workers in the Brick industry from different people, and it seems that he needed a large number of bricks, where we notice that he hired workers to manufacture brick throughout the month of July. The manufacture of bricks was of great importance from old Babylonian Period, as important information in this field reached us through cuneiform texts. It seems to us that these texts are daily diaries of ( d MAR.TU-i-bi), as we note that most of the texts of the study in this research date back to different days of The month of (July), without any indication of the duration of the lease or the materials received in return for their rent. In addition, it shows the urban movement witnessed by the city of Bekasi. As for the history of these texts that we have studied in this research, they go back to the twenty-fifth year (1724 BC) of the reign of King Samsu-iluna (1749-1712 BC).