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Making Tablets or Taking Tablets? ṭuppa/u ṣabātu in Assyria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2014

Nicholas Postgate
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Abstract

Middle Assyrian texts have a phrase ṭuppa ṣab¯atu, which is usually understood to mean “to take (possession of) a tablet”. There is a corresponding type of tablet called a ṭuppu ṣabittu (plural (ṭuppatu ṣabbutātu). This article contends that ṭuppa ṣabātu is a technical term for drawing up a formal document, and that ṭuppu ṣabittu is a “formally drawn-up tablet”, normally if not invariably involving at least one seal impression, used both in private commercial contexts and in public administration. It is further maintained that this usage survives into Neo-Assyrian times, when its most frequent (but not exclusive) usage is at the end of a legal document where a witness (often identified as a scribe) is described as ṣābit ṭuppi: this has been understood to mean that this scribe retained possession of the document, or that a third party “kept” the document. In the light of the fresh Middle Assyrian evidence, it is preferable to see it as referring to the scribe “who drew up the document”.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 73 , 2011 , pp. 149 - 160
Copyright
The British Institute for the Study of Iraq © 2011

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