Position in chronology
SAA 14 404. Purchase of Land
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 14(Beginning destroyed) (1) bought from [...]i. (1) [The money is paid completely]. That [house] and field are pu[rchased and acquired. Any revoca]tion, lawsuit, or liti[gation is void]. (4) [Whoever] in the future, at [any time, lodges a compla]int, whether Ahi-qa[m or his son or] his grandsons [...] (7) [......] (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 14 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[TA IGI mx]+⸢x⸣-i ⸢il⸣-qí [kas-pu gam-mur ta-din] / [É] A.ŠÀ šú-a-tú ⸢za⸣-[rip la-qi] / [tu-a]-ru de-nu DUG₄.[DUG₄ la-áš-šu] / [man-nu] šá ina ur-kiš ina [ma-te-ma] / [i-za-qup]-an-ni lu-u mPAB—qa-[me? lu DUMU-šú] / [lu-u] DUMU—DUMU-MEŠ-šú [x x x x] / [x x] ⸢x x x⸣ [x x x x x]
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Raija Mattila (SAA 14, 2002). ORACC text P336748.
Attribution
Image: Adapted from Raija Mattila, Legal Transactions of the Royal Court of Nineveh, Part II: Assurbanipal Through Sin-šarru-iškun (State Archives of Assyria, 14), 2002. Lemmatised by Melanie Groß, 2010–2011, as part of the FWF-funded research project "Royal Institutional Households in First Millennium BC Mesopotamia" (S 10802-G18) directed by Heather D. Baker at the University of Vienna. The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/saao/P336748/..
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/P336748/.
Related tablets
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.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.
The oldest surviving law code in human history. The principle that the state — not the wronged family — defines and enforces justice begins here.