MIDDLE ASSYRIAN LAWS (MAL)

Abstract

The Middle Assyrian Laws (MAL) represent a collection of laws composed using the cuneiform writing system of ancient Mesopotamia. The documents are written in the Akkadian language, in the Middle Assyrian dialect. The Middle Assyrian Laws date from 1450 to 1250 BCE. They closely resemble Sumerian and Babylonian law, although the punishments for crimes were more severe in this case.

The Middle Assyrian Laws have survived in the form of several clay tablets. The tablets that have reached us are not original documents but rather copies dating back to the 11th century BCE. The existing copies appear to have been edited during the reign of the Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser I (circa 1114–1076 BCE). The Middle Assyrian Laws may have been collected either for his royal library or for the libraries of individual scribes. Texts were discovered by the German Oriental Society during excavations in northern Iraq between 1903 and 1914.

Each tablet of the Middle Assyrian Laws is represented by only one source and is denoted by Latin letters A through O. We have a series of tablets containing legal provisions and not a unified, systematic, reconstructed composition. Some tablets appear to describe laws relating to one or several related issues, with MAL A being the best preserved. Its forty-nine provisions detail specific situations covering the entire spectrum of legal areas: theft, blasphemy, bodily injury and assault, sexual violence and sexual offenses, abortion, murder, false accusations, inheritance, marriage and spousal property, the wearing of veils, witchcraft, pledges, and debts. More specifically, we can divide it like this:

1. Women's Property Rights and Inheritance:

• Widow's Property Rights: 25, 26, 28, 46;
• Dowry and Post-Nuptial Property: 27, 29;
• Marriage Gifts: 30, 31, 42, 43;
• Spousal Property: 35;

1. Women's Status in Marriage and Divorce:

• Women's Responsibility: 32;
• Determination of Widow's Status: 33, 34;
• Wife Abandoned by Husband: 36;
• Divorce: 37, 38;

III. Crimes Committed by Women and Their Punishments:

• Theft: 1, 3, 5;
• Blasphemy: 2;
• Aggression and Violence: 7, 8;
• Adultery: 13;
• Abortion: 53;

1. Crimes Committed Against Women and Their Punishments:

• Aggression and Violence Against Women: 9;
• Rape: 12, 55, 56;
• Harm to Pregnant Women: 21, 50, 51, 52;

1. Other Issues Concerning Women:

• Status of Non-Free Women: 4, 39, 48;
• Women's Conduct in Public Space: 40;
• Status of a Concubine: 41;
• Interference of Third Parties in Family Relations: 6, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24;
• Family Obligations: 28, 44, 45, 47;
• Other Fragmentary Records: 49, 57, 58, 59.

MAL B's twenty provisions cover situations relating to inheritance and agriculture and irrigation. MAL C+G has eleven provisions that mainly concern pledges and deposits. The remaining tablets, which are smaller and less well-preserved, concern: theft, the responsibilities of shepherds, rules of maritime traffic, blasphemy, false accusations, inheritance, irrigation.

Keywords: Assyriology; Mesopotamia; Assyria; Laws; Middle Assyrian Laws (MAL); Tiglath-Pileser I.