The Babatha and the Salome Komaise archives contain a number of documents that may, indirectly, reveal something about the law of succession current at the time.
These are documents that are in some way or the other related to the death of a person and may thus tell us something about the legal consequences of this death. A document could in such a case reveal what the order of succession was: who the deceased's legal heir was considered to be at the time of his death.
The order of succession in this sense always refers to intestate succession, succession according to the law, i.e. without possible interference of legal acts made by the testator during his lifetime (such as wills). Because the order of succession was determined by the law and not by a legal act, the order of succession is often taken for granted: it will not be explicitly mentioned in the documents. This is logical, as the death of the deceased caused his legal heir to take up his position as such, without any further judicial act.[547] Accordingly it was assumed, taken for granted, that this or that person was the deceased's legal heir. Starting from that assumption, legal acts were made regarding the property of the deceased. Documents in the archives that are in one way or the other related to the death of a person and management of his property are P.Yadin 5, 12-15, 20, 21-22, 23-24, 25 and 26 and P.Hever 63.[548] None of these documents concerns a will; only one of them gives a direct clue as to who was considered to be legal heir.[549] Therefore, these documents give only indirect evidence as to the order of succession at the time and consequently as to the applicable law. Each papyrus will be discussed individually to see what it reveals about the order of succession, in particular the rights of inheritance of the son, the wife and the daughter. On the basis of this evidence I will formulate a possible explanation for the position of the daughter towards her father's estate and investigate whether this explanation can be supported by evidence of the position of the daughter towards her father's estate in legal documents (both law codes and legal acts) from other ancient eastern legal systems.
More on the topic The Babatha and the Salome Komaise archives contain a number of documents that may, indirectly, reveal something about the law of succession current at the time.:
- Oudshoorn Jacobine G.. The Relationship between Roman and Local Law in the Babatha and Salome Komaise Archives. IDC Publishers,2007. — 456 p., 2007
- Several papyri in the Babatha and Salome Komaise archives mention guardianship of minors or women.
- I. Papyri from the Judaean Desert: Babatha and Salome
- III. P.Hever 65: Salome Komaise’s Document: Premarital Cohabitation or Agraphos Gamos? Structure and most important features of P.Hever 65
- In this chapter I will look at those documents in the archives that have been qualified as marriage contracts: P.Yadin 10, P.Yadin 18 and P.Hever 65.[1009]
- IV. Conclusions: What Marriage Documents Can Show Regarding The Development Of (Jewish) Law
- I. Evidence for Applicable Law of Succession in the Archives Son
- CHAPTER THREE A NEW APPROACH TO UNDERSTAND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LOCAL AND ROMAN LAW IN THE ARCHIVES
- Cession
- PART TWO THE LAW BEHIND THE DOCUMENTS: CASE STUDIE
- This part of the study investigates general issues related with the question to law behind the documents.
- PART ONE THE LAW BEHIND THE DOCUMENTS: EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENC
- Diplomatics, Law and Romanisation in the Documents from the Judaean Desert