Of the private votive donations, nos. 92-97 are legal texts in every sense of the word, being witnessed, sealed and dated documents following the format and terminology of other texts transferring ownership of property almost exactly. In fact, one of these, no. 94, is identical in every detail to a normal sale document and it is only the facts that the purchaser is the priest of the Ninurta Temple and that it is stated that the purchase is made a-na dMAŠ "for Ninurta" that makes it possible to include the text here. A similar (in purpose) text from Calah,[[11]] not included in this volume, is likewise a standard sale contract in which only the statement that the purchase is a-na še-lu-u-ti ša dNIN. LIÍL, "for dedication to Mullissu," sets it apart. The fact that in most of these documents almost all of the witnesses are temple and palace functionaries makes one wonder if perhaps another text of this type might not be hidden in SAA 6 59.[[12]]
The legal status of other texts in the corpus as well is indicated by the presence of seals on the documents or by references to the seals on the originals from which they were copied. Where there is a seal on the tablet, it is the personal royal seal of the king; where a seal on the original document is referred to, it is the seal of one or more gods. These two categories of sealings occur on different types of texts, however. The seals of gods are found (referred to) on decrees and seem to serve more of a solemnizing than a legalistic function; they are discussed below with Treaties and Loyalty Oaths. The personal seal of the king, on the other hand, occurs on grants of land or tax exemption to individuals. Exceptionally, two closely related fragments of what may have been decrees have the royal seal (nos. 78-79), but the fragmentary nature of these pieces rules out any categorical analysis. The status of no. 10, which also has the royal seal, as a land grant is also questionable (see below, pp. XXIII-XXIV).
Presumably, all the land grants to individuals had royal seal impressions coming immediately after the name, titles and genealogy of the king since all pieces where this area is preserved have space reserved for the seals (although in no. 26 this space is blank). Indeed, with the exception of the three pieces mentioned just above, this is the only category of tablets on which the royal seal has been found, the other examples coming exclusively from bullae or dockets.[[13]] Although it is implied in the letters that the royal seal was used to validate other orders and directives of the king,[[14]] no examples of this usage have as yet come to light, in all probability because the seal was usually affixed to the envelope of the communication.
Legal texts occasionally exist in duplicate copies,[[15]] only one of which is sealed. The existence of numerous examples of legal texts with the seal space left blank suggests that the practice of duplicate copies of legal texts may have been widespread. The fact that in no. 26 the seal space is blank opens the possibility that there may also have been duplicate copies of the private grants. Although there is no direct evidence for this and other explanations are possible for the absence of seals on no. 26,[[16]] it is a very real possibility that there were at least two copies of the grant documents, one in the palace archives and one in the possession of the grantee. As to the presence of sealed copies of the grants in the archives, this must tie in with the presence of the legal corpus itself in the palace archives[[17]] and the high percentage of these texts that belong to the ruling classes or the king's (or crown prince's) personal attendants.[[18]] Thus the very presence of the grants in the palace archives is a parallel to the legal texts, although since one of the parties to the grants was the king himself, this presence is much easier to explain than in the case of the presumably private transactions of the legal corpus.
Another parallel to legal texts is the presence of a list of witnesses. Outside of the private votive donations, however, this is exceptional, occurring only in the inscriptions of Sennacherib. No. 86 is the only royal inscription for which a witness list is certain, but it is not unlikely for no. 20, and considering the structural similarity Sennacherib's other contributions to the corpus, also possible for nos. 21 and 87. Grants to individuals that have the royal seal are not witnessed, the king's personal seal apparently serving as sufficient testimony to the validity of the document. The possible exceptions of nos. 20-21 just mentioned are pieces that are too fragmentary to be certain of their content.
In addition to these general similarities between legal texts and the texts of this corpus, there is the distinct possibility that there may have existed legal texts that dealt with the acquisition of a property that may also have been listed in one of the grant documents of Assurbanipal or Aššur-etel-ilani. The formulary of Ashurbanipal's grants makes it clear that the property listed in the grant had been acquired by the grantee and that what was being granted by the king was not the land itself but exemption from taxes for the grantee and his clients. The formulary of the Aššur-etel-ilani grants is not entirely clear and it is possible here also that the grant was of tax exemption on land already owned by the grantee. This possibility, that both a purchase document and a grant document may have dealt with the same property, parallels and is discussed with the possibility that there may have been administrative texts listing the same properties as are found in grant documents.
11 ND 2309 = Iraq 16 (1954) 56 and pl. VII; cf. Menzel Tempel n70 T177-78.
12 Menzel Tempel n71 T179-80 classified this text as a "Tempelweihurkunde'' (cf., ibid., T167; followed by Kwasman, NALK no. 171), citing the Aramaic caption beginning šrkn, as evidence (cf. NALK, p. 208 ad l. 30'). However, as indicated in SAA 6 (following Fales Epigraphs, pp. 132-34), this is more likely to be a defective writing of the name of one of the persons being bought, Sitirkanu, than to be connected with the root ŠRK "to donate." Still, the list of witnesses provides adequate grounds for assuming the text to be a votive donation of the same type as no. 94 and ND 2309.
13 E.g., SAA 11 49-75; cf. NARGD, p. 7 and SAAS 1, pp. 52 and 129.
14 Cf., e.g., SAA 5 98, 105, 247 and SAA 10 357 and 359.
15 Cf., e.g., SAA 6 312-313, 329-330, etc.
16 Cf. NARGD, p. 32.
17 See SAA 6, pp. XV-XVIII.
18 Ibid., pp. XX-XXI.
Laura Kataja & Robert Whiting
Laura Kataja & Robert Whiting, 'Legal Texts', Grants, Decres and Gifts of the Neo-Assyrian Period, SAA 12. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1995; online contents: SAAo/SAA12 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa12/introduction/legaltexts/]