Position in chronology
SAA 06 003. Mušallim-Issar Buys a Slave (ADD 0492)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 6(Beginning destroyed) (2) [...] of Arbela [...] — (3) Mušallim-Issar, [village manager, has contracted, purcha]sed, and bought (him) [for] 2 homers of barley (equalling) 80 minas of copper at its current value. (5) The money is paid completely. That [man] is purchased, acquired, paid off, and cleared. [Any revoca]tion, lawsuit or litigation is void. (8) [Whoever in the] future, in far-off days, [whether ...]banu or his sons, [grandsons] or labour-duty superior, seeks [a lawsuit or lit]igation against Mušallim-Issar, (12) shall pay 5 minas of silver (and) one mina of gold [to Ištar of] Arbela, and shall return [the money] tenfold to its owners. He shall contest [in] his lawsuit and not succeed. (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 6 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[x x x x x] nu [x] ⸢x⸣ [x x x x] / [x x]-⸢li*⸣ ša URU.arba-⸢ìl⸣ [x x x x] / [ú-piš]-ma mmu-šal-lim—d.INNIN LÚ.[GAL—URU-MEŠ] / [ina ŠÀ] 80* MA.NA URUDU-MEŠ 02* ANŠE ŠE*.PAD*-MEŠ a-ki pa-ša*-[ri] / [i]-⸢zi*⸣-rip i-si-qi kas-pu ga-mur ta-di-ni / [LÚ] ⸢šu⸣-a-tú za-rip la-a-qí a-pil za-a-ku / [tu-a]-⸢ru⸣ DI.KUD DUG₄.DUG₄ la-a-šú / [man-nu ša a]-⸢na⸣ ur-kiš a-na UD-me a-ṣa-ti / [lu mx x]+⸢x⸣-ba-nu lu…
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Theodore Kwasman & Simo Parpola (SAA 6, 1991). ORACC text P335430.
Attribution
Image: Adapted from Theodore Kwasman and Simo Parpola , Legal Transactions of the Royal Court of Nineveh, Part I: Tiglath-Pileser III through Esarhaddon (State Archives of Assyria, 6), 1991. 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/P335430/..
Translation excerpted from Kwasman, T. & Parpola, S. 1991. Legal Transactions of the Royal Court of Nineveh, Part I: Tiglath-Pileser III through Esarhaddon. SAA 6. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa06/P335430/.
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.