The appellate process in a legal record {di til-la} from Ur III Umma

Abstract

In this paper, we publish in copy, transliteration and translation a previously unpublished Ur III legal record from Umma. It can be shown, on the basis of internal and prosopographic evidence that the tablet belongs to the relatively large group of Umma legal records that are housed in the British Museum and currently being published by Manuel Molina. This di-til-la is of particular interest, however, in that it includes an appellate process in which an initial legal ruling adjudicated some aspects of the slave sale in question, but other aspects such as the purchase price were appealed to the court of the provincial governor of Umma. We draw some parallels with the appellate process in Old Babylonian legal documents and conclude with a brief discussion of the *-na-na . . . nu- ‘only’ construction in Sumerian.

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