NMC102H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Grave Goods, Ashurbanipal, Sumerian Language
31 May 2015
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Every day (not a novel; an i owe you note, for example; written for immediate purposes) Royal inscriptions (completely different purpose than the everyday one) Didn"t have to be scribes to learn cuneiform; you could write basic contracts, but not very much beyond that; most cases dealing with specialists. May have been written on someone else"s behalf; i. e. : the king, or a contract written on behalf of another man who couldn"t write. House sale contract (most important family contracts; passed down through generations as house was inherited) "seal of scribe" on sides of the tablets; nabu-ushallim = descendant of someone called the egyptian = specialized scribe. On back of tablet: contains names of witnesses, name of scribe, and the date it was written. Range of kinds of legal contracts: sales of fields, houses, slaves, temple offices; debt notes such as receipts, dowry texts, marriage agreements, testaments, inheritance division, adoption contracts; lease contracts of fields, houses, temple offices.
