Position in chronology
SAA 06 251. Šadditu, Sister of Esarhaddon, Buys Land (ADD 0804)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (1) [......] in ...[...] (2) [... adjoin]ing the river, [....... and] the house of Ahu-damqu; (3) Nergal-ubal[liṭ ...] and his wife — (4) Šaddit[u, daug]hter [of] Sennacherib, king of Assyria, and sister of Es[arh]addon, king of Assyria, has contracted and bought (said property) for 8 minas of silver by the mina of Carchemish. (8) The money is paid completely. That garden, house, land and people [are purchased] and acquired. Any revocation, law[su]it, or litigation is voi[d]. (10) Whoever in the future, at any t[ime], lodges a complaint and breaks the con[tract], whether…
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/P335653/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x x x x x] ŠÀ ⸢lu*⸣ [x x x x] / [x x x x x] ⸢SUḪUR⸣ ÍD ⸢SUḪUR⸣ [x x x x x] / [x x x x x] É* mPAB—SIG₅ md⸢U.GUR⸣—ú-⸢bal⸣-[liṭ] / [x x x x]+⸢x⸣ MÍ-šú ú-piš-ma ⸢MÍ⸣.KUR-i-⸢tú⸣ / [DUMU].MÍ [md]30—PAB-MEŠ—SU MAN KUR—aš-šur NIN-su / ša maš-[šur]—⸢PAB⸣—AŠ MAN KUR—aš-šur-ma ina ŠÀ-bi 08 MA.NA ⸢KUG.UD⸣ / ina ma-né-[e] ša URU.gar-ga-mis il-qi / kas-pu gam-⸢mur⸣ ta-din GIŠ.SAR É A.ŠÀ UN-MEŠ šu-a-[te…
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Theodore Kwasman & Simo Parpola (SAA 6, 1991). ORACC text P335653.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335653). 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/P335653/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.