The idea that imprisonment 'corrects' prisoners stretches back to some of the earliest texts in history
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Tuesday, August 22, 2023
But the idea that imprisonment and suffering were supposedly good for the prisoner didn’t emerge in the 19th century.
Key Points:
- But the idea that imprisonment and suffering were supposedly good for the prisoner didn’t emerge in the 19th century.
- Almost a decade ago, as a graduate student researching slavery in early Mesopotamia, I came across numerous texts dealing with imprisonment.
- I became fascinated with imprisonment in these cultures: Most of them detained suspects only briefly, but in literary and ritual texts, imprisonment was seen as a transformative, purifying experience.
The ‘house of life’
- Around 1,800 B.C., students training as scribes at Nippur, an ancient Sumerian city, frequently copied from a selection of 10 literary works.
- Using cuneiform, these aspiring scribes would copy texts that included the exploits of the legendary hero Gilgamesh as he fought the beast Huwawa, the fearsome guardian of the forest.
- They wrote about a great Mesopotamian king named Šulgi, who claimed to be a god.
- And as the master scribe dictated these various texts, the students also heard about a prison goddess named Nungal.
Fact vs. fiction
- Were texts like the “Hymn to Nungal” matters of sincere religion or just fairy tales that no one took seriously?
- Since it is a literary text, it is not a reliable source about the justice system, either.
- However, scholars Klaas Veenhof and Dominique Charpin have found evidence of Nungal playing a role in the judicial process.
Yesterday and today
- Perhaps it is that experience that caused a text like the “Hymn to Nungal” to be written, exploring how such an experience could be used to reform the prisoner through lament.
- How prison systems think about reform is very different today than how the “Hymn to Nungal” envisions it.