Position in chronology
SAA 12 018. Fragment of Land Grant (NARGD 19)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 12(Beginning destroyed) (r 1) [NN, king of Assyria], ex[empted (from taxes) and gave to NN, his] eunu[ch]. (r 3) The corn taxes of these fiel[ds and ... shall not be collected], the st[raw taxes shall not be gathered]. (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 12 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Transliteration
⸢ú-zak⸣-[ki-ma a-na mx x x x] / ⸢LÚ.SAG⸣-[šu id-din] / ⸢ša⸣ A.ŠÀ.⸢GA⸣-[MEŠ x x x x x] / ŠE.nu-sa-ḫi-ši-[na la i-na-su-ḫu] / ŠE.⸢IN⸣.[NU-ši-na la iš-šab-ba-áš]
Scholarly note
Royal grant, decree or gift inscription of the Neo-Assyrian period, edited by Laura Kataja & Robert Whiting (SAA 12, 1995). ORACC text P336264.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P336264). source
Translation excerpted from Kataja, L. & Whiting, R. 1995. Grants, Decrees and Gifts of the Neo-Assyrian Period. SAA 12. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa12/P336264/.
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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.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history.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.