Neo-Babylonian Trial Procedure

FAIN: RZ-50606-06

Saint Joseph's University (Philadelphia, PA 19131-1308)
Bruce Wells (Project Director: November 2005 to January 2009)

The examination of several hundred Neo-Babylonian cuneiform tablets in order to analyze and describe the features of the trial court system operative in Mesopotamia (present day Iraq) during the 7th to 5th centuries BCE. (36 months)

This project will analyze and describe the features of the trial court system operative in southern Iraq during the 7th to 5th centuries BCE. This will entail the identification and examination of several hundred Neo-Babylonian cuneiform tablets, both published and unpublished. The analysis will utilize methods from Assyriology, legal history, and information technology. The final result will be a one- or two-volume work containing text copies, text editions, analysis of the texts’ legal content, and an enclosed CD-ROM with a searchable database to facilitate readers’ utilization of the collected legal-historical data. A free website will also be created with many of the tablets rendered in searchable Unicode encodings for cuneiform signs.

Associated Products

The Cultic Versus the Forensic: Judahite and Mesopotamian Judicial Procedures in the First Millennium BCE. (Article)
Title: The Cultic Versus the Forensic: Judahite and Mesopotamian Judicial Procedures in the First Millennium BCE.
Author: Bruce Wells
Abstract: The article examines Neo-Babylonian legal texts from southern Mesopotamia and biblical legal texts from ancient Israel. Both sets of texts date mainly to the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE. Both reveal a reduction in the use of cultic procedures to resolve legal disputes and an increase in the use of ordinary evidence and forensic procedures. Accompanying this development is a change in the use of the judicial oath. Prior to this period, judicial oaths were court-ordered, dispositive, and taken only by one party or one party's witness(es). In this period, oaths become voluntary, can be overcome by other evidence, and can be taken by both parties at trial.
Year: 2008
Primary URL: https://www.academia.edu/1862520/The_Cultic_versus_the_Forensic_Judahite_and_Mesopotamian_Judicial_Procedures_in_the_First_Millennium_BCE
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of the American Oriental Society

Pre-Trial Negotiations: The Case of the Run-Away Slave in Dar. 53 (Article)
Title: Pre-Trial Negotiations: The Case of the Run-Away Slave in Dar. 53
Author: Cornelia Wunsch
Author: F. Rachel Magdalene
Author: Bruce Wells
Abstract: published in Iraq 70 (2008): 205-213
Year: 2008
Primary URL: https://www.academia.edu/1862508/Pre-Trial_Negotiations_The_Case_of_the_Run-Away_Slave_in_Dar._53
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Iraq

Judicial and Legal Systems I. Achaemenid Period (Book Section)
Title: Judicial and Legal Systems I. Achaemenid Period
Author: F. Rachel Magdalene
Editor: E. Yarshater
Abstract: This article provides an overview of the judicial and legal systems of the early Persian period when the Achaemenid rulers were in power.
Year: 2009
Primary URL: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/judicial-and-legal-systems-i-achaemenid-judicial-and-legal-systems
Publisher: Columbia University
Book Title: Encyclopædia Iranica
ISBN: 1-56859-050-4

Competing or Complementary? Judges and Elders in Biblical and Neo-Babylonian Law (Article)
Title: Competing or Complementary? Judges and Elders in Biblical and Neo-Babylonian Law
Author: Bruce Wells
Abstract: This article compares the role of judges and elders in deciding legal cases as revealed by the law codes from the Hebrew Bible (the Covenant Code, the Holiness Code, the Deuteronomic Code) and by trial records from the Neo-Babylonian period in Mesopotamia.
Year: 2010
Primary URL: https://www.academia.edu/1862542/Competing_or_Complementary_Judges_and_Elders_in_Biblical_and_Neo-Babylonian_Law
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte

The Egibi Family (Book Section)
Title: The Egibi Family
Author: Cornelia Wunsch
Editor: Gwendolyn Leick
Abstract: This chapter gives an overview of the Egibi family, an important business in family in Babylon from whom an archive covering four generations during the sixth century BCE has survived.
Year: 2007
Publisher: Routledge
Book Title: The Babylonian World
ISBN: 978-0415497831

Conditional Verdicts in Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Legal Texts (Book Section)
Title: Conditional Verdicts in Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Legal Texts
Author: Bruce Wells
Editor: R. Achenbach and M. Arneth
Abstract: This chapter compares conditional verdicts that were issued by judicial courts in Mesopotamia during the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods. Such verdicts typically required one of the parties to a trial to bring additional evidence (usually another witness) in order for that party to win the trial.
Year: 2009
Primary URL: https://www.academia.edu/1862524/Conditional_Verdicts_in_Neo-Assyrian_and_Neo-Babylonian_Legal_Texts
Publisher: Harrassowitz
Book Title: "Um Gerechtigkeit und Recht zu üben” (Gen 18,9): Studien zur altorientalischen und biblischen Rechtsgeschichte, zur Religionsgeschichte Israels und zur Relgionssoziologie
ISBN: 978-3-447-0610

The Assertory Oath in Neo-Babylonian and Persian Administrative Texts (Article)
Title: The Assertory Oath in Neo-Babylonian and Persian Administrative Texts
Author: Cornelia Wunsch
Author: Bruce Wells
Author: F. Rachel Magdalene
Abstract: This article looks at how the weakened assertory oath was used not only in trial proceedings but also in administrative contexts during the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods in Mesopotamia.
Year: 2010
Primary URL: https://www.academia.edu/1862566/The_Assertory_Oath_in_Neo-Babylonian_and_Persian_Administrative_Texts
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Revue internationale des droits de l’antiquité

"Administration of the Judiciary: Managing Local Courts in the Persian Period" (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: "Administration of the Judiciary: Managing Local Courts in the Persian Period"
Author: F. Rachel Magdalene
Abstract: This paper was presented at the Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Date: 07/28/2007
Conference Name: Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale

"God and Law in the Ancient World" (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: "God and Law in the Ancient World"
Abstract: This presentation consisted of four different lectures, presented at Trinity Lutheran Church, Moline, Illinois, on April 1, 15, 22, and 29 of 2007.
Author: F. Rachel Magdalene
Date: 04/01/2007
Location: Moline, Illinois

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