Nuzi, an ancient city to the E of the Tigris and SE of Nineveh, excavated during 1925-1931, yielded an inscribed clay map, the oldest yet discovered, as well as evidence that as early as the 15th century B.C.E. there was buying and selling on the installment plan there. Some 20,000 clay tablets, considered to have been written by Hurrian scribes in the Babylonian language, were unearthed. These contain a wealth of detail regarding the legal jurisprudence at that time, involving such things as adoption, marriage contracts, rights of inheritance, and wills.

Mari and Nuzi. The ancient royal city of Mari (Tell Hariri) near the Euphrates River, about 11 km (7 mi) NNW of Abu Kemal in SE Syria, was the site of excavations from 1933 on. An enormous palace covering some 6 ha (15 acres) and containing 300 rooms was discovered, and its archives yielded more than 20,000 clay tablets. The palace complex included not only the royal apartments but also administrative offices and a school for scribes. Great mural paintings or frescoes decorated many of the walls, the bathrooms were equipped with tubs, and cake molds were found in the kitchens. The city appears to have been one of the most outstanding and brilliant of the period in the early second millennium B.C.E. The texts on the clay tablets included royal decrees, public notices, accounts, and orders for construction of canals, locks, dams, and other irrigation projects, as well as correspondence concerning imports, exports, and foreign affairs.