Sublease of land.

The document relates how two persons negotiate a share-farming agreement for the cultivation of a field in spring (2nd month). A allows B to use (lit. “gives”) a field in return for a share of the crops produced on it (ana errešūti). The field in question is described in agricultural, topographical and administrative terms as follows: (1) it is arable grain-producing land ([zēru pī šul]pi). (2) It extends from the […d]anu canal up to the Archers’ canal and from the border of Ḫaranaya up to the field of the str[onghold ? …]-Enlil (di-in?-[di  …]-Enlil). (3) It is either institutional land (eqlu bīt ritti) or the entire land (eqlu gabbu)(*) that the J<udean> šušānû-s who belong to "the Across-the-River" (ša šušānê šá lú*+ia* ebir nāri) tax-unit hold and that is managed by C (ša qātē ~). The details of the agreement are only partially preserved, but they relate to the division of the harvest between the shareholders (lit. “everything that they make with it” mimma mala ina libbi i[p-pu-šu]/i[l-la-a’] …), a plow (epinnu) belonging to A, and shares in the field (zitti eqli). Each party to the agreement has taken a copy, and in case someone violates the contract a fine in non-oxidised silver (kaspu peṣû, lit. “white silver”)  is to be paid (2 minas). Names of 8 witnesses and the scribe: Enlil-zēru(*)-iddin/Nabû-ēṭir.

(*)Note that Waerzeggers (NABU 2017) reads a.šà gab-bi "the entire field" instead of a.šà é rit-<ti>, Enlil-šumu-iddin instead of Enlil-zēru-iddin, and urué-bir-ÍD instead of urué-hi-li-pi based on her collation of the tablet.

A= Nīr-Yāw/Aḫīqam; B= Bēl-eṭēri-Šamaš/Mannu-lū-bālu; C= Zababa-[…], head of the workgangs in the village Across-the-River)(*) (or: in the village Bīt-ḫilēp)