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3.3.2 Documents
In one case adjudicated by the king, land purchased in good faith
was “claimed” by the king and restored to a large estate.^54 In order
“not to forfeit the hand of the buyer,” the king ordered the sons of
the buyer to be compensated and ordered those sons to hand over
their “sealed record of purchase” (see 6.3.1.1 below). But tablets
could also be inaccurate, incomplete, or deliberately falsified, and in
most cases the courts relied primarily on witnesses, whose testimony
could be supported by an oath, and on documents when their tes-
timony could be supported by witnesses. A legal document was reg-
ularly encased in an envelope that was then sealed to ensure its
integrity. Sealed tablets could be produced to demonstrate an out-
standing obligation of one of the parties. Once the obligations had
been met, the tablet could be broken.3.3.3 Oath
3.3.3.1 The oath was a self-curse performed in the temple, in the
physical presence of the emblem—or “weapon”—of the god (or mul-
tiple gods). No actual oaths from this time are known.3.3.3.2 The effectiveness of the oath lay in the oath taker’s fear of
sanctions—divine, and presumably human if discovered. Thus, send-
ing the parties to take the oath was a measure by which the court
could test the truthfulness of the claims and also give the parties an
opportunity to settle. If a party was afraid to take the oath and
refused, he thereby essentially admitted the untruthfulness of his
claim/testimony, and the trial was over. Some documents report sim-
ply that “PN 1 and PN 2 were sent to take the oath; PN 1 paid PN 2
such-and-such an amount.” We can infer that PN 1 had refused to
take the oath and the two agreed to settle.3.3.4 Ordeal^55
3.3.4.1 The mechanics of the ordeal are not made explicit. It takes
place at the divine River, or river god. Middle Babylonian sources
report that persons were sent to the ordeal;^56 that persons were either(^54) BBSt. 3.
(^55) See Gurney, Middle Babylonian.. ., 10–12.
(^56) UET 7 9; BBSt. 3.
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