At the dawn of history, imprisonment or detention seems to have developed out of the need to create and control access to labor. Early polities in ancient Mesopotamia utilized prisoners of war and the slave trade to meet labor needs.1 These prisoners and slaves had to be controlled in some manner if their labor was to be exploited. While extreme measures are attested, such as the blinding of prisoners of war,2 blinding limits the usefulness of the worker. Other measures are attested from early Mesopotamia, such as the placement of a “slave mark,” which appears to be a distinctive haircut. Branding was also used to mark out slaves from among the population. But identification markers such as haircuts and brands only serve to identify after the fact and offer little help deterring flight except in the sense that the marks could result in a runaway being more likely to get caught. For these reasons, the use of corporal confinement through the placement of guards and the use of ropes and fetters were the most efficient means of controlling movement for the extraction of labor, since they limited damage to the worker but also curbed attempts to runaway. This practice of detention became adaptable to meet a variety of needs relating to control and coercion, whether detainment prior to a trial, coercing payment, or to force job performance for the palace. As such the mechanisms of detention, for example the placement of guards, were adaptable to meet a variety of needs.
Criminality might be a secondary strand that relates to the origins of detention in Mesopotamia, but only in a very limited sense when someone had to be held until punishment in communities. Once administrative bodies, workhouses, and guards as controlling mechanisms were established, these could be utilized effectively to detain someone accused of a “crime,” to coerce payment from a debtor or someone owing a fine, and to coerce job performance. As such the intersection between “crime” and detention was limited and mostly related to pretrial holding and coercion.
Detention was used in relation to the judicial process. The religious elements of the judicial function of the king, oath ordeals, and the River Ordeal were intended to inspire awe, suggesting that misdeeds and “crimes” were going to be found out. The king, with the help of the gods, would know if someone was guilty and bring justice to light. But imprisonment as punishment is not reliably attested and likely non-existent in the documents of practice.
Although limited in its relationship to criminal behavior, imprisonment came to have an ideology attached to it in literary texts and ritual practice. Imprisonment was used in various rituals and religious texts where malicious demons, such as Lamaštu, could be detained and controlled. Further, imprisonment was featured in rituals and literary texts, where prisoners, kings, or even gods were purified from their iniquities. This was meant to repair relationships and restore ideals of purity. While imprisonment was intended to be miserable, in its literary and ritual context, it was good for the prisoner in the end.
Imprisonment entailed suffering. Literary, administrative, and epistolary texts all attest to the misery of imprisonment. The “Hymn to Nungal” depicts life on the inside as terrifying and full of lament. The suffering had the goal of producing laments that would pacify the heart of the personal god of the prisoner, restoring a right relationship by refining character and giving birth to new life. Unlike the death penalty, the prisoner’s suffering was a merciful act, since it was a mechanism through which the prisoner was spared the death penalty and received reconciliation with their god, who was essential for their protection. These notions of purity extended beyond personal religious danger, since impurity could result in communal devastation as well.
The depiction of suffering prisoners, however, was not restricted to literary texts. Accounts of death in prison, physical punishment, and potential starvation all show why one Old Babylonian letter writer referred to the prison as a house of distress. The intended good of the prisoner never appears to be in view in the documents of practice.
In the end, it appears that imprisonment as reflected in everyday practice in early Mesopotamia must be disentangled from the literary and religious ideology that came to be attached to it. This distinction between ideology and reality suggests that while literary and ritualistic imprisonment could serve a higher function for the good of the prisoner, the everyday reality appears to have been multifunctional, multicontextual detention for the purpose of coercion. It is only when these religious ideals are appropriated in connection to imprisonment that suffering and coercion can be transformed into a mechanism of higher good. It is here, perhaps, that we find the greatest contribution of early Mesopotamian imprisonment to a world history of prisons. Imprisonment is adaptable to meet a variety of social goals and needs. Any ideology that comes to be attached to imprisonment must be distinguished from reality. Stated goals and functions attached to social institutions must be assessed against what actually occurs.
While imprisonment in early Mesopotamia was multifunctional with only limited intersection with “crime,” the modern prison, when we compare the stated political goals to its implementation, is multifunctional but with consistent intersection with crime. So, while the modern prison is not just about punishment, as it has been implemented to meet a variety of social goals, modern imprisonment has also been adapted to meet those goals through criminalizing behaviors and persons accordingly. As such, the modern prison is entangled with coercion, control, desires for safety, and the establishment of certain ideals through the creation and implementation of laws. Through the attachment of the ideology, such as criminal reform, the modern prison is viewed as a mechanism for reforming the prisoner. So while some might be convinced that the act of imprisonment and forced periods of reflection will produce positive results in those who are capable of betterment, the modern prison is also exploitable by others to profit from, get elected by, and segregate through criminalization. It is precisely this adaptability of imprisonment that makes it so difficult to reform and is precisely what makes imprisonment able to be used for all of these things at any given time without being restricted to any one of them. So while very real differences remain in the historical practices of imprisonment, the use of imprisonment/detention in the service of religion, power, and politics has very deep historical roots.
Social history provides an apolitical context to ask hard questions about the nature, functionality, and effectiveness of imprisonment. As seen in the earliest historical examples of imprisonment from Mesopotamia, imprisonment was a multifunctional approach to a variety of social goals. If we were to assess imprisonment by looking merely at the Mesopotamian example, one would hardly conclude that it was either just or an effective means of creating positive change in the lives of offenders. Still, social history will not be enough. Much like the abolition of slavery, real change in our approaches to punishment will likely only occur through a multifaceted effort that brings together humanitarian, religious, social, economic, and historical concerns to bear on the problems of punishment in our world today. As discussed above, it is clear that the status of a person was figured into their relationship to justice in early Mesopotamia, unlike our society, which claims fairness and equality but so often fails to deliver. While we claim that our justice is blind; it is we who are blind to our injustice. This is but one example of how ideology obscures the reality of practice in relation to the history of prisons.
1 Bartash 2018b: 277. See Richardson 2012: 8, 11; Steinkeller 2015: 5–6.
2 See for example, Gelb 1973: 87. See recently, Heimpel 2009c: 43–44 and Cooper 2010. See further, Steinkeller 2013a.