Position in chronology
SAA 14 233. Document Concerning a Temple Slave (ADD 0093)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (b.e. 1) [...] they shall divide and give (b.e. 2) [...] return the temple slave (3) [...] this house (4) [Any revocation, law]suit, litigation [or ...] is void. (r 1) [......] (r 2) [......]-uṣur [...] (r 3) [......] (r 4) they approached [...]-uṣur (r 5) [...]bat, ... (r 6) [...], whether Aplaya, scribe. (r 7) [...]. Witness Kur-Inurta.
Source: Mattila, R. 2002. Legal Transactions of the Royal Court of Nineveh, Part II: Assurbanipal through Sin-šarru-iškun. SAA 14. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa14/P335044/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x] ⸢i⸣-ba-tú-qu i-da-nu-ni / [x x x] ARAD É—DINGIR i-tu-⸢ru?⸣-ni / [x x x x x] É šu-tu-u-ni / [tu-a-ru de]-e-nu DUG₄.DUG₄ / [x x x x] la-áš-šú / [x x x x]-nu ⸢x⸣+[x x x] / [x x x x x]+⸢x⸣-PAB [x x x] / [x x x x x]+⸢x⸣-ir liš-[x x x] / [x x x]-PAB iq-ri-bu-u-ni / [x x x]-bat LÚ.⸢x⸣-me / [x x]-a-ni lu mA-ia A.BA / [x x x] IGI mkur—dMAŠ
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Raija Mattila (SAA 14, 2002). ORACC text P335044.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335044). source
Translation excerpted from Mattila, R. 2002. Legal Transactions of the Royal Court of Nineveh, Part II: Assurbanipal through Sin-šarru-iškun. SAA 14. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa14/P335044/.
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Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
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The oldest surviving law code in human history. The principle that the state — not the wronged family — defines and enforces justice begins here.