King Tudhaliyah IV from the late thirteenth century, which exists
in one contemporary copy, in Hittite. Not royal, but apparently a
decree, is a document containing rules concerning the assembly of
an Old Assyrian trading colony (see 1.2.3.1 below).
From Egypt comes the Edict of King Horemheb (Eighteenth
Dynasty), from the beginning of his reign, toward the end of the
fourteenth century. It is in the form of an inscription on the Tenth
Pylon at Karnak, but there were probably other contemporary copies.
There is a preamble, a main section containing about ten provisions,
and an encomium of the king’s achievements in the matter of jus-
tice, possibly referring to further provisions.1.1.2.2 Instructions
A special type of text found in the late second millennium is royal
instructions. These are directives by the king to persons or classes of
persons within the administration—civil, religious, and military—on
the performance of their duties of office. They are mostly represented
by Hittite texts, directed, for example, to the commander of the bor-
der guards, to princes, to governors, and to temple functionaries.
Comparable are a number of decrees from the palace of the
Middle Assyrian kings concerning the conduct of members of the
royal harem—wives, concubines and eunuchs.^51.1.2.3 Trial Records
Trial records are academic or practical. The first category is repre-
sented by “model court cases” found in a handful of documents from
Old Babylonian Nippur. The principal published exemplar records
three trials: a dispute over an office, the seizure of a slave girl, and
a homicide. It derives from a scribal school, and the homicide trial
exists in several copies. The latter is the only trial record to docu-
ment discussion of the legal grounds for the judgment, although a
comparable discussion is found in the account of the trial of Jeremiah
in the Bible ( Jer. 26). All other trial records are records of fact: the(^5) A text from Nuzi (AASOR 16, no. 51) may be classified in the same genre,
but contains only a single directive. It is a royal proclamation directed to palace
slaves (which is more likely to mean simply royal officials than actual slaves),
forbidding them to give their daughters into certain professions without the king’s
permission.
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