Keywords
court proceedings in Mesopotamia
Old Babylonian letters
How to Cite
Abstract
Besides the Old Babylonian legal collections, legal documents which come from this period also show that the procedures connected with court proceedings in Babylonia in the first half of the second millennium BC had a clearly normalized form. This is suggested by both paragraphs 9 through 13 of the Hammurabi code of laws and numerous trial documents. Unfortunately, none of these categories of texts allows one to determine whether this was a result of arranging experiences which stemmed from practice or of regulations imposed by state authorities. A separate category of texts delineating the procedures and the course of Old Babylonian proceedings are letters from this period. They contain mentions of royal decrees (ṣimdatum / ṣimdat šarrim) which regulated the course of court proceedings and even the delivery of sentences. There was an obligation to proceed in accordance with the royal decrees in case of all cases which were connected with persons who performed functions within the framework of the state’s administrative apparatus. This may mean that there was an obligation to promulgate the laws passed by the authorities. Admittedly, the texts which are called ṣimdatum or ṣimdat šarrim remain hitherto unidentified. However, they could have the form of specific orders which pertained to legal problems such as AbB 3 1, which contains a simple prohibition on particular activities.
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