Wet Nurse Service In Mesopotamia According To Cuneiform Documents, Qadištum Women As Wet Nurse And Practice Wet Nurse In The Holy Books

The beneficial effect of the mother milk on the baby's development was known since ancient times. The children of the mothers has no milk or who lost their lives during birth, were given to the wet nurse to breastfeed them. Cuneiform texts, proves the existence of wet nurses in Mesopotamia. Some legal texts and law provisos, which contains information about wet nurses others and their rights, especially belongs to the Old Babylonian Period, is important it shows us the legal rights of the wet nurses women. In this documents, it is also understood that, the women who are probably from clergy and called qadištum was served as wet nurses. It must be approved that qadištums who married and gave birth, not all qadištum woman for a serve to morally powerful such as wet nurse. According to written documents, the wet nurse could breastfeed 2 or 3 years. Food, clothing or the amount determined between the parties was paid as a breastfeed to the wet nurse. When the biological mother can not pay the fee of the breastfeed, it was also known from the texts that wet nurse kept the child. It’s intended to protect that the rigths of the both sides, notification of the judgement that they can’t litigate each other and the biological mother and the wet nurse will not appeal each other, after understanding between the parties in the legal texts Old Babylonian Period. It’s known that guaranteed by law the rigths of the wet nurses but while they were carrying through this service, they exposured to severe punishments because of the mistakes that their made. It is also understood that, the wet nurse service and the rules governing their rights in Ancient Mesopotamia and the wet nurse practices in the Holy books has shown similar features. In this study, as a basis of cuneiform documents, the records in the Holy books and some archaeological materials will be evaluated in the context of our subject.

Keywords

Ancient Mesopotamia, Cuneiform Tablets, Mesopotamia Laws, Wet Nurse, qadištum.