Position in chronology
SAA 06 114. Fragment of a Sales Document (702) (Iraq 32 12)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [Instead of his seal he impressed his fingernail]. (2) [Fingernail of NN, owner of the ... being so]ld. (fingernail impressions) (Break) (fingernail impressions) (r 1) [Month ...], 27th day, [eponym year] of Nabû-le'i, governor of Arbela. (r 3) [Witness Nabû-ze]ru-iqiša, keeper of the tablet.
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/P336198/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[ku-um NA₄.KIŠIB-šú ṣu-pur-šú iš-kun] / [ṣu-pur mx x x EN x SUM]-⸢ni⸣ / [x x x x x x x x] ⸢SAG?-ME?⸣ / [x x x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣-a.a / [x x x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣ / [x x x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣ / [ITI.x] UD 27-KÁM / [lim-me m]⸢d⸣PA—ZU LÚv.GAR.KUR URU.ár-ba-ìl / [IGI mdPA?]—⸢NUMUN⸣—BA-šá ṣa-bit IM
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Theodore Kwasman & Simo Parpola (SAA 6, 1991). ORACC text P336198.
Attribution
Image: BM 134582 (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P336198). 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/P336198/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.