Position in chronology
SAA 06 319. Remanni-Adad Buys Two Slaves (665-XI-10) (ADD 0237)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 6(1) Seal of Se'-natan, owner of the people being sold. (stamp seal impressions) (3) Dinana and Gabbiya, his wife, a total of 2 persons, servants of Se'-natan — (5) Remanni-Adad, chariot driver, has contracted and bought them for one mina of silver. (6) The money is paid completely. The people are purchased and acquired. Any revocation, lawsuit, or litigation is void. (9) Whoever in the future, at any time, whether Se'-natan or his relative, lodges a complaint and breaks the contract and seeks a lawsuit or litiga[tion] against Remanni-Adad and [his sons], (r 1) [shall place] one mina of silver…
State Archives of Assyria, volume 6 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
NA₄.KIŠIB mse—na-tan / EN UN-MEŠ SUM-ni / mdi-na-na MÍ.ga-bi-a MÍ-šú / PAB 02 ZI LÚ.ARAD-MEŠ* ša mse—na-tan / ú-piš-ma mrém-an-ni—dIM LÚ.mu*-kil*—KUŠ.PA-MEŠ / ina ŠÀ-bi 01 MA.NA KUG.UD il-qi kas-pu ga-mur / ta-din* UN-MEŠ za-ár-pu la-qí-u / tu-a-ru de-e-ni DUG₄.DUG₄ la-áš-šú / man-nu ša ina ur-kiš ma-te-me / lu-u mse—na-tan lu-u mám-ma-nu-⸢šú⸣ / ša i-zaq-qu-⸢pa⸣-ni / GIL-u-ni de-e-ni DUG₄.⸢DUG₄⸣…
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Theodore Kwasman & Simo Parpola (SAA 6, 1991). ORACC text P335184.
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/P335184/..
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/P335184/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.