Position in chronology
SAA 06 298. Partial Duplicate of the Previous Text (671) (ADD 0503)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (2) [Those ... are purchased and acquired. Any revocation], lawsuit, or litigation is v[oid]. (3) Whoever in the future, at any ti[me], lodges a complaint or se[eks] a law[suit] or litigation, whether Deti-Bel-allaka or his son, grandson, brothers, or nephews, (9) whoever seeks a lawsuit or litigation against Remanni-Adad, his son and grandson, shall place [x] minas of refined silver and 5 minas of pure gold in the lap of Ninurta residing in Calah, and shall return the money tenfold to its owners. He shall contest in his lawsuit and not succeed. The king shall be his…
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/P335441/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x]+⸢x⸣+[x x x x x x] / de-e-nu DUG₄.DUG₄ ⸢la⸣-[áš-šú] / man-nu ša ur-kiš a-na ma-⸢te⸣-[ma] / i-za-qu-⸢pa⸣-a-ni de-[e-nu] / DUG₄.DUG₄ ub-ta-ú-[ni] / lu-u mde-ti—EN—DU*-⸢ka*⸣ / lu-u DUMU-<šú> lu-u DUMU—DUMU-⸢šú⸣ / lu-u ŠEŠ-MEŠ-šú lu-u ⸢DUMU⸣—ŠEŠ-[MEŠ-šú] / ša TAv* mrém-a-ni—dIM / DUMU-šú DUMU—DUMU-šú de-e-nu / DUG₄.DUG₄ ub-ta-ú-ni / [x] MA.NA KUG.UD ⸢LUḪ-ú⸣ 05 MA.NA / ⸢KUG⸣.GI sa-⸢ak-ru⸣ ina…
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian legal transaction at the royal court of Nineveh, edited by Theodore Kwasman & Simo Parpola (SAA 6, 1991). ORACC text P335441.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335441). 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/P335441/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.