Position in chronology
SAA 06 004. Mušallim-Issar Buys Slaves (ADD 0497)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (1) all his [......, ...] of Arbe[la] — (3) [Muša]llim-Issar, village manager, [has contracted and bought them fo]r 16 minas of sil[ver]. (5) [The mon]ey is pa[id] completely. [Those people are purchased] and acquired. (Rest destroyed)
Source: 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/P335435/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x x]-⸢MEŠ⸣-šú gab*-⸢bi*⸣ [x x x x] / [x x x] ša URU.arba-[ìl.KI ú-piš-ma] / [mmu]-⸢šal⸣-lim—d.INNIN LÚ.GAL—URU-MEŠ*-[ni] / [x x x] ⸢ina⸣ ŠÀ-bi 16 MA.NA ⸢KUG⸣.[UD] / [il-qí] ⸢kas⸣-pu ga-mur ⸢ta⸣-[din] / [UN-MEŠ šú-a-tú zar-pu] laq-qi-⸢ú⸣ [tu-a-ru de-nu]
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Theodore Kwasman & Simo Parpola (SAA 6, 1991). ORACC text P335435.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) ? — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335435). source
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/P335435/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.