Blindness in Nuzi Texts

Nine texts issued from the site of Nuzi (modern Yorgan Tepe, Iraq) attest the Akkadian term UB-BU-TU, referring to people, with different spellings and contexts. Various etymological interpretations of the term have been proposed, the most followed being upput.u, ?blind (person)?. However, the debate is far from closed, and recent studies have questioned such view (1.). This paper aims at assessing the Nuzi evidence (2.?3.), supporting the traditional interpretation of the term as ?blind (person), and setting the whole topic in the context of the employment of sightless people as workforce in the Ancient Near East (4.)