Position in chronology
SAA 06 270. Fragment of a Legal Document (679) (ADD 0534)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [Sea]l of Nergal-šarru-uṣur, [...]. (cylinder seal impression) (Break) (r 1) Witness Nabû-belu-ka''in, cohort commander of the domestics. (r 3) Witness Šar-Nabû-allaka. (e. 1) [Month ..., ...th day, eponym year of Is]si-Adad-a[ninu].
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/P335468/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[NA₄].⸢KIŠIB⸣ mU.GUR—MAN—PAB ⸢LÚv*⸣.[x x] / IGI mdPA—EN—GIN ⸢LÚv*.GAL*—ki*-ṣir*⸣ / šá É—02-e / IGI mIM—dPA—a-la-ka / [ITI.x UD x-KAM lim-mu m]⸢TA⸣—dIM—⸢a⸣-[ni-nu]
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Theodore Kwasman & Simo Parpola (SAA 6, 1991). ORACC text P335468.
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/P335468/..
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/P335468/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.