According to Stol 1985: 121-122 the verbs ṣaḫātum[glossary=ṣaḫātum] and ḫalāṣum refer to two processes:
- crushing the (warmed) seeds in a mill (see below, erû) and extracting the sesame from the pulp (ṣaḫātum);
- pounding the sesame seeds in a mortar (see below, esittu); the oil dripping from the resulting cake is the best oil (ḫalāṣum).
In this case, the meaning of the Akkadian verb ḫalāṣum that is retained is “auspressen” (AHw), “(1) to press, squeeze out” (CAD). But another meaning of this verb is “auskämmen” (AHw), “(2) to clean by combing” (CAD), and its interpretation depends on its context of use: “to comb” in the case of wool (De Graef 2014: 46), “to hammer” or “to anneal” in the case of metal (Arkhipov 2012: 62) and “to clean” in the case of work concerning irrigation canals (Reculeau 2018: 136). This wider sense of ḫalāṣum as “to clean, to separate (by cleaning)” pertains to its usage with “sesame” as well.
In the case of preparing sesame seeds for oil extraction, ḫalāṣum and ṣahātum are clearly not alternative but consecutive processes as suggested by the letter AbB 09 058 from Kiš (Postgate 1985: 146). The sender Bēlšunu mentions two different stages of production which should be controlled because the ḫalṣum-oil (written i3.bara2.ga[glossary=šamnum ḫalṣum]) he received does not smell (as it should do) (ul naṭû): at first, sesame seeds must be “ḫalāṣum” and then milled (ṣaḫātum). These two steps do not represent the chaîne opératoire for producing a standard sesame oil but a high-quality sesame oil. The letter from Mari ARM 18 032 proves that this oil was clearly differentiated from usual sesame oil. This kind of oil was produced by oil millers (ARM 21 107) and not perfumers; it was used for food (FM 03 062, FM 03 064, JCS 29 170-183), for anointing (FM 03 029) and as raw material for the production of perfumed oils (UET 5 769, ARM 21 107) and it is sometimes listed with scented oils (FM 06 059).
Postgate 1985: 147 suggested that before the grinding process, the sesame seeds could be soaked in water to dehull them and that ḫalāṣum actually refers to the process of recovering the dehulled kernels from the water. The use of the logogramm bara2.ga (para10.ga) in Old Babylonian texts for ḫalṣum[glossary=ḫalṣum] strengthens this assumption. It is used for both sesame seeds and oil as products of the ḫalāṣum process (only the verb ḫalāṣum has a phonetic spelling). Sumerian para10(-ga) “of the sack” is a short form of the idiomatic phrase para10 a5[glossary=para10 a5] “to apply a sack (of goat-hair) (to remove the hulls from the sesame seeds)”. They used this sack to separate the seed coats from the seeds (see entry para10 a5[glossary=para10 a5]; but cf. Postgate 1985: 147). The seed coats were collected from the water’s surface, whereas the heavier dehulled kernels remained on the bottom of the container full of water. In addition, a pleasant smell characterised the raw hulled sesame seeds (Bedigian 2010: 86), which could explain the reaction of the sender of the letter AbB 09 058 discussed above.
Therefore, ḫalṣum sesame seeds can be identified as “hulled sesame seeds” and ḫalṣum sesame oil “oil obtained from hulled sesame seeds”.