Lease of Agricultural Land: Three Old Elamite Contracts from the Sukkalmah Period

There are only a few Old Elamite documents available today; however there are more than 500 legal documents from Susa, written in Akkadian, that provide us with a unique chance to study legal and social institutions of Elam in the Sukkalmah Period. The present study will edit and translate three lease documents from the Sukkalmah Period, which are known as esip-tabal contracts. A comparative study with Laws of Hammurabi reveals that a certain type of mortgage was formulated as lease, in order to provide a way to charge more interest than what is legally allowed. This essay will explain the periods of Elamite history and the variety of sources available in order to establish the historical context. Then the significance of the Akkadian texts from Susa is explained, and finally the three esip-tabal documents are studied from the perspectives of form and content.