Position in chronology
Cuneiform legal tablet in case from Aleppo
Not yet translated
This tablet is catalogued and photographed, but no English translation is stored in this record yet. Our translation engine works through the untranslated corpus every night, oldest first — this page will update the day its turn comes. If you are a specialist and can read it, we would love your help.
The world it comes from
Hammurabi, the Epic of Gilgamesh, mathematics.
Scholarly note
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Clay tablet from Alalakh still in clay envelope. Dated 1720 BC.
Attribution
Image: Fæ ( Own work ) — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:Cuneiform legal tablet in case from Aleppo.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACuneiform_legal_tablet_in_case_from_Aleppo.jpg. Description: Clay tablet from Alalakh still in clay envelope. Dated 1720 BC..
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Related sources
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.
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A major surviving ancient law collection, carved on a basalt stela over two meters tall. Royal authority and legal decisions become a monument; this is not a code in the modern sense.