Position in chronology
SAA 14 317. Fragment of a Witness List (ADD 0606)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (r 1) Witness Ninuayu, [...]. (r 2) Witness Ubru-Issar, servant of [...]. (r 3) Witness Azanayu, servant of [...]. (r 4) Witness Liphuru, from the village of [...]. (r 5) Witness Puhrati-Issar. (r 6) [Witness NN], servant of the crown [prince]. (r 7) [...]...
Source: Mattila, R. 2002. Legal Transactions of the Royal Court of Nineveh, Part II: Assurbanipal through Sin-šarru-iškun. SAA 14. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa14/P335524/
Why it matters
Transliteration
IGI mni-nu-a.a LÚv.[x x x x] / IGI mSUḪUŠ—d.INNIN LÚv.ARAD [x x x x] / IGI ma-za-na-a.a LÚv.ARAD ša [x x x x] / IGI mlip-ḫu-ru URU.ka-par*—[x x x] / IGI mpu?-uḫ-ra-ti—d.INNIN / [IGI mx x x] LÚv.ARAD ša DUMU—[MAN] / [x x x x]-nu-u-ti [x x]
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Raija Mattila (SAA 14, 2002). ORACC text P335524.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335524). source
Translation excerpted from Mattila, R. 2002. Legal Transactions of the Royal Court of Nineveh, Part II: Assurbanipal through Sin-šarru-iškun. SAA 14. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa14/P335524/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.