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Babylonian periods. The texts that are available come primarily from
the cities of Ur^5 and Nippur, or are unprovenienced. Many of the
Nippur texts have yet to be published. A few texts have been exca-
vated at the Kassite capital, Dur-Kurigalzu. The ›ana kingdom is
the source of a few documents bearing on the history of law, and
the texts reveal influence from both the Middle Assyrian and Middle
Babylonian heartlands as well as similarities to legal practices known
from Nuzi.^61.3 Royal International Correspondence: The Tel el-Amarna Archive
The letters found at el-Amarna date to this period, including four-
teen letters written by the Kassite king of Babylonia to the Pharoah.^7
The letters shed some light on the royal Babylonian perspective on
some legal matters, chiefly theft and murder.- C AL
2.1 Organs of Government
2.1.1 The King
A literary text about the Kassite king Kurigalzu (I, late 1400s, or
II, 1332–1308) refers to the king as “the judge, who like ”ama“dis-
covers the truth, who among all people restores the one who has
been wronged, who decreed anduràru(annulment of debt slavery) of
the people of Babylon.”^8
Limits on the powers of the king are evident in the narûs. According
to one text, previously uncultivable land was developed by the king
before he granted it;^9 in another we are informed that the previous
holder had committed a serious offense before the king claimed his
land in order to grant it to another.^10 Both cases demonstrate that
royal prerogative to claim and grant land was not boundless and
had to be legally justified.(^5) Copies of the texts from Ur are in UET 7. The texts are edited in Gurney,
Middle Babylonian...
(^6) For a discussion of the ›ana texts, see Podany, et al., “Adoption.. .,” and
Lion, “L’anduraru.. .”
(^7) See the introduction to Moran,Amarna Letters.. ., xiii–xxxix.
(^8) MAH 15922, obv 12–13; discussed by Sommerfeld, “Kurigalzu-Text...”
(^9) MDP 10, pls. 11–12.
(^10) IM 74651 (= Reshid and Wilke, “Grenzstein.. .”).
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