Position in chronology
SAA 06 006. Mušallim-Issar Buys 7 Slaves (713-III-3) (ADD 0248)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 6(Beginning destroyed) (fingernail impression) (1) Šamaš-immi, his wife, son, and 4 daughters, a total of 7 persons, servants of Gabbaru — (4) Mušallim-Issar has contracted and bought them for 180 minas of copper from Gabbaru. (7) [The mon]ey is paid completely. Those pe[opl]e are purchased and acquired. Any revocation, lawsuit, or litigation is vo[id]. (12) Whoever in the future, at any time, breaks the contract, shall pay 10 minas of silver to Ninurta residing in Calah. He shall pay [one] talent of tin to the go[vern]or of his city, and shall re[turn] the money ten[fold] to its owner. [He…
State Archives of Assyria, volume 6 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
mdšá-maš—im-me MÍ-šú DUMU-šú / 04 DUMU.MÍ-MEŠ-šú PAB 07 ZI-MEŠ / LÚv.ARAD-MEŠ ša mgab-ri / ú-piš-ma mmu-šal-lim—d15 / ina ŠÀ 01 me 80 MA.NA ⸢URUDU⸣-MEŠ / TAv IGI mgab-ri / il-⸢qi kas⸣-pu ga-mur / ta-din ⸢UN-MEŠ⸣ šu-a-tú / za-ar-pu ⸢la*-qi-ú⸣ / tu-a-ru de-⸢e⸣-[nu] / da-ba-bu la-áš-⸢šu⸣ / man-nu ša ina ur-kiš / ina ma-ti-ma GIL-u-ni / 10 MA.NA KUG.UD a-na dMAŠ / a-šib URU.kal-ḫi SUM-an / 1 GÚ.UN…
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Theodore Kwasman & Simo Parpola (SAA 6, 1991). ORACC text P335195.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) ? — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P335195). source
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/P335195/.
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.
An early surviving historical monument that joins named rulers, a territorial dispute and religious oaths. It shows how a city-state turned victory into a lasting public claim, without establishing that this was the first recorded conflict.
Among the oldest surviving written law collections. It provides an early witness to royal justice and specified compensation, rather than a starting date for law itself.