42

BM 80318 (=AbB 7 153) is a petition to the Babylonian king for legal relief, written by a man whose tablets, documenting his ownership of properties in Sippar-Jaḫrūrum, had been destroyed. The destruction of the tablets has long been understood to describe the outcome of judicial review following the institution of a debt-remission (mīšarum). This contribution makes two amendments to the understanding of the text. First, it shows that the destruction of the tablets occurred long after the purchase of the property, probably more than thirty years later; the text likely refers to a mīšarum of Abi-ešuḫ’s Year 13 rather than one in Samsuiluna 24 (the date of the original purchase). Second, a reconstruction shows that the destruction of the tablets (at least according to the complaint of the petitioner) was explicitly illegal: they had been properly reviewed at least twice before and were now broken by a royal official ‘without hearing my testimony.’ As such, the petition describes a deviation from proper procedure, not the normal outcome of a debt-remission.