Position in chronology
SAA 06 042. Šumma-ilani Buys a House (692-II-10) (ADD 0326)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 6(1) Instead of his seal he impressed his fingernail. (2) Fingernail of Dusî, owner of the house being sold. (space for seal impressions) (3) A built house with its beams and doors, a sleeping room, its yard, its bathroom, servants' quarters, two thirds of the main building, an upper floor, a storehouse, and a wing with a tomb in it — (8) Šumma-ilani, chariot driver of the chamberlain, has contracted and bought it for 3 minas of silver by the (mina) of the king. (11) The money is paid completely. That house is purchased and acquired. Any revocation, lawsuit, or litigation is void. (14)…
State Archives of Assyria, volume 6 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
⸢ku⸣-um NA₄.KIŠIB-šú ṣu-pur-šú GAR-un / ⸢ṣu-pur⸣ mdu-si-i EN É SUM-ni / É ep-šú a-di GIŠ.ÙR-MEŠ-šú / a-di GIŠ.IG-MEŠ-šú É—NÁ TÙR-šú / É—TU₅-šú É—02-e 2/3* šá É—dan-ni / É NIM É.a-bu-sa-te É—ŠU / KI.MAḪ ina ŠÀ-bi ú-piš-ma / mBE-ma—DINGIR-MEŠ-ni LÚ.mu-kil—KUŠ.PA-MEŠ / ša LÚ.šá—UGU—É-a-ni / ina ŠÀ 03 MA.NA KUG.UD ina šá LUGAL TI-qí* / kas-pu gam-mur ta-ad-din / É šu-a-tú za-rip laq-qí / tu-a-ru…
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Theodore Kwasman & Simo Parpola (SAA 6, 1991). ORACC text P335270.
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/P335270/..
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/P335270/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.