A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law

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Syro-Hittite scribal traditions diverge in their recording of comple-

tion and contingency clauses.

7.1.1.1 Syro-Hittite records are very terse. There are no special

completion clauses and only three contingency clauses:

1. barring later claims by the seller or other claimants and asserting that the
   present tablet will be conclusive evidence against (“defeat,” lè"u) them. The
   same formula is found at Ugarit in cases involving the jurisdiction of
   the king of Carchemish.^64


2. allowing a claim to redeem the property on payment of a specified sum
   (e.g., AO 5:9, ll. 11–13).


3. giving a warranty of title. The seller must pay offthird-party claimants
   ensuring that the purchaser will be free of claims (zaku: ibid., ll. 14–17).

7.1.1.2 Syrian records include the following special clauses:

1. a note of receipt of the price by the seller and that “his heart is satisfied”—
   a phrase already attested in the third millennium.^65


2. in purchases of urban land: “the dedicatory bread has been broken, the
   table has been anointed with oil, the kupuruof the [land] has been given;
   the ‘brothers’ have received one shekel.”^66 The ceremony would appear to
   be a festive meal of the type already attested in third-millennium land sales,
   and the kupurua nominal payment to the clan to extinguish any claims by
   distant relatives.^67


3. a penalty for later claims payable not to the buyer but in equal shares to
   either the city and the “brothers” (most frequent), dNIN.URTA and the
   city (always the case with sales by the city authorities),^68 or to dNIN.URTA
   and the “brothers”, or else to the palace alone.^69 The penalty has two

in form. The reason seems to be that the sale was ancillary to a more important

transaction, involving either intra-family arrangements (e.g., Emar 156; TBR 66,

81) or debt (e.g., Emar 82, 123).

(^64) E.g., Emar 76:28–33. See Wilcke, “A›.. .,” 125. The Syro-Hittite texts tend
to use the verb ragàmufor claims, whereas the Syrian texts use baqàru, but neither
exclusively.
(^65) See Skaist, “”ìmu gamru...”
(^66) E.g., Emar 109:17–21; RE 20:19–21. It is not usually found where the seller
and buyer are closely related, nor at all in sales by city authorities (dNIN.URTA
and elders), except in RE 34, where the authorities are not the elders but the “great
ones”(gal.gal), and in tablets from Ekalte (Ekalte 11, 73, 80), but without the kupuru
payment.
(^67) See Scurlock, “ku-bu-ru.. .,”; Van der Toorn, “Domestic Cult.. .,” 43–44;
Zaccagnini, “Ceremonial Transfers.. .,” 39–41.
(^68) Except for TBR 14, where payment is to dNIN.URTA, the city and the palace,
probably due to the special circumstances of the confiscation of the property being
sold. See Beckman, “Emar Notes,” 121.
(^69) RE 34 exceptionally is to the palace and the city. At Ekalte, the penalty in
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