Position in chronology
SAA 06 129. Purchase of a House, Garden and People (696) (ADD 1200)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [Seal of ...]-Marduk, [owner of the house, gar]den and people being sold. (stamp seal impressions) (Break) (r 1) [Witness ...]-ilani. (r 2) [Witness ...]-bari. (r 3) Month [..., ...]th day, [eponym year of Šulmu]-beli.
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/P335980/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[NA₄.KIŠIB mx]—dAMAR.UTU / [EN É GIŠ].SAR* UN*-MEŠ SUM-an / [IGI mx x x]—DINGIR-ME / [IGI mx x x]+⸢x⸣-ba*-ri / [ITI.x UD x]-KÁM / [lim-mu mDI-mu]—be*-lí*
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Theodore Kwasman & Simo Parpola (SAA 6, 1991). ORACC text P335980.
Attribution
Image: BM 099166 (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335980). 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/P335980/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.