Position in chronology
SAA 14 381. Purchase of Land (ADD 1263)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (r 1) [The money] is paid [completely. Those] fields [are purchased and ac]quired. Any revocation, lawsuit, or litigation is void]. (r 3) [Whoeve]r, at any time, [whether NN] or his sons, [comes forward and ...... against ...], his son or his [......]. (Rest destroyed)
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/P336023/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[kas-pu gam-mur] ta-din* A.ŠÀ-MEŠ / [x x x zar-pu] ⸢la⸣-qi-u tu-a-ru / [man-nu šá ina ur-ki]-⸢iš⸣ ina ma-te-me / [lu-u mx x x DUMU-MEŠ-šú] ⸢DUMU⸣—DUMU-MEŠ-šú / [ša e-la-an-ni TA mx x x] DUMU-šú / [x x x x x x x x x]-šú / [x x x x x x x x x]+⸢x-x x⸣
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Raija Mattila (SAA 14, 2002). ORACC text P336023.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P336023). 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/P336023/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.