Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters

by C. H. W. Johns

Real character of the contract tablets

To some extent the term “contracts,” which has commonly been applied to them, is misleading. The use of the term certainly was due to a fundamental misunderstanding, they being once considered as contracts to furnish goods. They were even thought to be promises to pay, which passed from hand to hand, like our checks, and so formed a species of “clay money.” These views were both partially true, but do not cover the whole ground.

They were binding legal agreements, sealed and witnessed. They were binding only on the parties named in them. They were drawn up by professional scribes who wrote the whole of the document, even the names of the witnesses. Hence it is inaccurate to speak of them as “signed” by anyone but the scribe, who often added his name at the end of the list of witnesses. The parties and witnesses did impress their own seals at one period, but later one seal, or two at most, served for all. It is not clear whose seal was then used. But the document usually declares it to be the seal of the party resigning possession.

Their external form

As to external form, most of those which may be called “deeds” consist of small pillow-shaped, or rectangular, cakes of clay. In many cases these were enclosed in an envelope, also of clay, powdered clay being inserted to prevent [pg 011] the envelope adhering. Both the inner and outer parts were generally baked hard; but there are many examples where the clay was only dried in the sun. The envelope was inscribed with a duplicate of the text. Often the envelope is more liberally sealed than the inner tablet. This sealing, done with a cylinder-seal, running on an axle, was repeated so often as to render its design difficult to make out, and to add greatly to the difficulty of reading the text. When the envelope has been preserved unbroken, the interior is usually perfect, except where the envelope may have adhered to it. Such double tablets are often referred to as “case tablets.” The existence of two copies of the same deed has been of great value for decipherment. One copy often has some variant in spelling, or phrasing, or some additional piece of information, that is of great assistance. The envelope was rather fragile and in many cases has been lost, either in ancient times, or broken open by the native finders, in the hope of discovering gold or jewels within. But in any case, the envelope, so long as it lasted, was a great protection; and there are few tablets better preserved than this class of document.

In Assyrian times, few “case” tablets are preserved, they seem to have gone out of fashion except for money-loans and the like. But it may be merely an accident that so few envelopes are preserved. In the case of letters, where the same plan of enclosing the letter in an envelope was followed, hardly any envelopes have been found, because they had to be broken open to read the letter. The owner of a deed may have had occasion to do the same, but here there was less excuse, as the envelope was inscribed with the full text.

In early times, another method of sealing was adopted. A small clay cone was sealed and the seal attached to the document by a reed, which ran through both. The seal [pg 012] thus hung down, as in the case of many old parchment deeds in Europe.

How kept

The deeds were often preserved in private houses, usually in some room or hiding-place below ground. In the case of the tablets from Tell Sifr, which were found by Loftus in situ, three unbaked bricks were set in the form of a capital U. The largest tablet was laid upon this foundation and the next two in size at right angles to it. The rest were piled on these and on the bricks and the whole surrounded by reed matting. They were covered by three unbaked bricks. This accounts for their fine preservation.

Others were stored in pots made of unbaked clay. The pots, as a rule, have crumbled away, but they kept out the earth around. Sometimes this broke in and crushed the tablets. In some cases they were laid on shelves round a small room; but in others they seem to have been kept in an upper story, and so were injured, when the floor fell through.