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(Borsippa, seventh to early fifth century), the Egibi (Babylon, end of
seventh to early fifth century), and the Mura“û (Nippur, second half
of fifth century) families. Documents of a private character are some-
times also found in temple archives, especially if one of the contracting
parties is a temple, represented by its officials. In addition to archives,
there are many isolated texts of this nature.1.4.3 Records of litigation are normally protocols mentioning the
parties, the object of the case, and the decision. Another character-
istic type is declarations before witnesses.1.5 Scholastic Documents
Tablets I and II of the lexical series ›AR(UR 5 ).RA = ¢ubullucon-
sist of contractual formulae, comparable to the series ana itti“uand
the legal material used in Old Babylonian scribal training.^11 It con-
tinued to be copied until the end of the cuneiform tradition (frag-
ments of transliteration into Greek letters). There also exist model
contracts written on school tablets.1.6 Administrative documents, Letters, and Other Sources
More than half of the extant Neo-Babylonian clay tablets are of an
economic and/or administrative character, for the most part origi-
nating from two large archives: that of the Ebabbar temple in Sippar
and that of the Eanna temple in Uruk. Of the archives of other
Babylonian temples, only small groups or isolated texts are known.
Information on legal matters can sometimes be derived from such
documents. It is not always possible to differentiate exactly between
a legal document, characterized by the naming of witnesses on the
tablet, and an administrative document, especially if temple officials
and temple personnel are involved. Virtually no royal archives have
been discovered to date.^12 Legal information is also to be found in
a number of letters (partly of administrative character) and some-
times in texts of other kinds, such as literary works (see 2.1.1 below).(^11) Edited in MSL V. For Ana itti“usee MSL I.
(^12) The remains of a royal archive, found at Babylon, are unpublished: see
Perdersén, Archives.. ., 184 and n. 65 (Babylon 7).
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