Position in chronology
SAA 06 261. A Fragmentary Slave Sale (680-III-22) (ADD 0298)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 6(1) [Se]al of Ramman-dalâ, [own]er of the people being sold. (stamp seal impressions) (Break) (r 1) [Witness ...]uni. (r 2) [Witness Ah]i-duri. (r 3) [Witness ...]ziz. (r 4) [Mon]th Sivan (III), 22nd day, [epon]ym year of Dananu.
State Archives of Assyria, volume 6 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
[NA₄].KIŠIB mdra-man—⸢dal*-a*⸣ / ⸢EN⸣ UN-MEŠ SUM-a-ni / [IGI mx x]-u-ni / [IGI m]⸢PAB*⸣—BÀD / [IGI mx]+⸢x⸣-zi-iz* / ⸢ITI⸣.SIG₄ UD 22-KÁM / ⸢lim⸣-mu mda-na-nu
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Theodore Kwasman & Simo Parpola (SAA 6, 1991). ORACC text P335243.
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/P335243/..
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/P335243/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.