Legal life

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In Mesopotamia, the terms kittum and mîšarum were two complementary ways of noting "justice". The first word, kittum, derives from the root KûN, meaning "to be stable": this is justice as the guarantor of order, for example, that which obliges the debtor to repay his creditor. The second term, mîšarum, derives from the root YŠR, meaning "to go straight": this is the justice that rectifies unbearable situations, preventing the rich from crushing the poor and leading kings to forgive the weakest the arrears of their taxes and debts. In ^17th-century Babylonia, justice was experienced in two different ways.

First, there was what might be called ordinary justice, corresponding to the notion of kittum, responsible for settling disputes that might arise in everyday life. The course of trials can be studied thanks to the procedural documents that have come down to us, but also thanks to correspondence. These documents show that written and testimonial evidence, far from being in opposition, were seen as complementary: when the written word developed, the Mesopotamians personified tablets by likening them to witnesses, considering them to have a mouth, since it was possible to listen to them. If the written word played an increasingly important role in the administration of evidence during the Paleo-Babylonian period, this was above all the result of a phenomenon of accumulationdue to the passage of time: family archives were increasingly well-stocked. When both written and testimonial evidence were lacking, the procedure of the evidentiary oath was used: several examples have been examined.

More often than not, the texts indicate that the parties will find "the judges"(dayyânû): the question is whether we are dealing with a well-defined body and whether they are professionals. M. Tanret's 2019 prosopographical study shows that judges were chosen from among a city's leading families, and should have already had experience of economic and social life before becoming judges - but almost certainly no specific professional training. One was not a judge until one's death: the time periods attested are around fifteen years. Several questions remain unanswered, such as how they were appointed: it was probably by co-optation, even though judges usually declared themselves to be servants of the king on their seal(s). Another unknown factor is their remuneration. A statuette offered by the judge Gimil-Marduk to the god Šamaš bore an inscription whose text reveals the conception ofa judge's role at the time: he was supposed to pronounce according to the inspiration that came from the god of Justice to whom he was addressing himself. Once again, law and religion are intimately intertwined. We have examined in detail the text CUSAS 10 17, which shows how, at the beginning of Samsu-ditana's reign, justice was dispensed in Dur-Abi-ešuh, according to the Sumerian tradition specific to the city of Nippur and known since the 3rd^millennium.

Alongside ordinary justice, whose procedures and actors we have examined, there were extraordinary acts: the edicts of mîšarum that kings proclaimed on their accession, but also at other times during their reign when the need arose. We began by studying the text of these edicts , which has come down to us in the form of several complementary manuscripts: the oldest dates from Ammi-ditana, the second from Ammi-ṣaduqa. They include both measures internal to the administration of the royal domain (notably the remission of arrears) and others by which the king intervened in relations between his subjects (notably the remission of debts between private individuals). Kraus's study of the rhythm of the mîšarum has been taken up again and completed: we see that 9 edicts were promulgated in 116 years, i.e. an average interval of just over 12 years between two mîšarum, which corresponds roughly to what is attested for the reigns of Hammu-rabi and Samsu-iluna.

On the face of it, the 17th^centurywas not as significant in terms of royal justice as the previous century: no king erected a stele similar to Hammu-rabi's Code. This monument remains as it was - but it was copied at the time. Nor do we know of any new rescript similar to Samsu-iluna's concerning the nuns-nadîtum studied last year: but several of the copies we have of this text were found in the house where Ur-Utu lived until the year 18 of Ammi-ṣaduqa, a sign that this rescript was still a precedent. In the absence of a stele analogous to the Code, the making of royal statues with a scepter of justice was commemorated in the name of the years 28 of Abi-ešuh and 27 of Samsu-ditana. All of which goes to show that concern for justice was surely as important among the kings of the late Palaeo-Babylonian period as it had been among their predecessors.