Central Assyrian Laws

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As Assyrian Law refers to a collection of sayings right from the 12th century BC. BC, which were written on several fragmentary clay tablets found in Aššur and are one of the most important sources for research into cuneiform writing .

The tablets were discovered during the excavations of the German Orient Society between 1903 and 1914 and published for the first time in 1920 together with other texts by Otto Schröder . The first comprehensive processing was presented in 1935 and introduced a numbering of the panels with the capital letters A – J, which has since been extended to O by further finds. Together with the more famous Codex Ḫammurapi , the Central Assyrian laws were the subject of comparatively extensive scientific research, so that today there are numerous translations of them into German, English, French, Polish, Italian, Norwegian and Russian.

The collection was founded in the 12th century BC. Compiled in the reign of Ninurta-apil-ekur (1181–1169 BC), but also at least partially reflects older Central Assyrian law. The conservation status of the panels varies greatly; panels A and B are best preserved. The following are preserved:

  • Panel A (also Frauenspiegel ): 60 legal clauses on women's and marriage law
  • Panel B: 18 legal principles on real estate law
  • Tables C / G: 11 legal propositions on slave law in addition to debt bondage, theft and custody
  • Panel E: 2 Laws on Infidelity
  • Panel M: 3 legal propositions on maritime trade law
  • Panel N: 2 legal sentences on false accusation
  • Panel O: 2 legal propositions on inheritance law

Because of their compilation character, the legal nature of the Central Assyrian laws, as well as for the Babylonian codices, was controversial. Paul Koschaker already put forward the thesis that this could be a legal book . Godfrey R. Driver and John C. Miles turned against this with their publication, the transcription of which is now regarded as out of date, which, like Guillaume Cardascia later, saw a state legislature at work who wanted to amend women's rights at least in the case of panel A. A comparison with traditional legal documents shows that at least some of the Central Assyrian laws reflect the law in force at the time.

The relationship between the Central Assyrian laws and the Codex Ḫammurapi was also discussed. On the one hand, it was established that no regulations from the ancient Babylonian collection of laws were repeated in the Central Assyrian laws, but that there could at least have been a tendency to introduce changes and additions to it that differ from this. On the other hand, the literary level of the Central Assyrian laws does not reach the level of the Codex Hammurabi because of their lack of clarity.

literature

  • Rykle Borger : Akkadian legal books. The Central Assyrian Laws. In: Texts from the environment of the Old Testament 1: Law books . Mohn, Gütersloh 1982, pp. 80-92.
  • Richard Haase : The cuneiform legal collections in German . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1979. ISBN 3-447-02034-2 , p. 92 ff. (Panels A, B, C, + G, F, M, N and O).
  • Rykle Borger: Handbuch der Keilschriftliteratur , I-III, Berlin / New York 1967–1975.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Otto Schröder: Cuneiform texts from Assur with various contents (= scientific publications of the German Orient Society 35). Hinrichs, Leipzig 1920. Some more fragments were published by Ernst Friedrich Weidner : The age of the central Assyrian legal texts , in: Archive for Orient Research 12 (1937), pp. 46–54.
  2. ^ Godfrey R. Driver, John C. Miles: The Assyrian Laws. (= Ancient Codes and Laws of the Near East 2). Clarendon Press, Oxford 1935.
  3. ↑ Viktor Korošek offers an outdated compilation : Keilschriftrecht , in: Bertold Spuler (ed.): Orientalisches Recht (= Handbook of Oriental Studies 1st section, supplementary volume 3). Brill, Leiden 1964, p. 153.
  4. ↑ cf. Helmut Freydank : Contributions to Central Assyrian chronology and history (=  writings on the history and culture of the ancient Orient . Volume 21 ). Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1991, p. 68 (dissertation).
  5. ↑ Paul Koschaker: Source-critical investigations on the "ancient Assyrian laws" ( communications from the Vorderasiatisch-Ägyptische Gesellschaft 26,3). Hinrichs, Leipzig 1921, pp. 79-84.
  6. ^ Godfrey R. Driver, John C. Miles: The Assyrian Laws. (= Ancient Codes and Laws of the Near East 2). Clarendon Press, Oxford 1935, pp. 14-15.
  7. ^ Rykle Borger: Akkadian legal books. The Central Assyrian Laws. In: Texts from the environment of the Old Testament 1: Law books . Mohn, Gütersloh 1982, p. 80.
  8. ↑ Guillaume Cardascia: La codification en assyrie , in: Revue Internationale des Droits de l'Antiquité 3 (1957), pp. 53-71.
  9. ^ Godfrey R. Driver, John C. Miles: The Assyrian Laws. (= Ancient Codes and Laws of the Near East 2). Clarendon Press, Oxford 1935, p. 15.
  10. ^ Rykle Borger: Akkadian legal books. The Central Assyrian Laws. In: Texts from the environment of the Old Testament 1: Law books . Mohn, Gütersloh 1982, p. 80.