Position in chronology
SAA 14 458. Barruqu Lends Grain (TIM 11 35)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 14(1) 5 homers one seah 5 'l[itres' ...] according to the seah of [x 'litre(s)'] belonging to Barr[uqu], (4) at the disposal of Nabû-šallimšunu, (5) at the disposal of Ereš-Issar, (6) They shall pay at the threshing floor in its original amount. (7) If they do not pay, it shall accrue interest. Month Nisan (I), (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 14 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
05 ANŠE 1(bán) 05 ⸢qa⸣ [x x] / ina GIŠ.BÁN ša [x qa] / ša mbar-⸢ruq⸣-[qu] / ina IGI mdPA—DI-šú-nu / ina IGI mAPIN-eš—15 / ina ad-ri SAG.DU-šá SUM-⸢nu⸣ / šum-ma la i-din-<nu> / ⸢tar*⸣-bi ITI.BARAG
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Raija Mattila (SAA 14, 2002). ORACC text P224978.
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/P224978/..
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/P224978/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.