A cuneiform tablet written in Sumerian and containing a record of a trial for murder was discovered in 1950 in an excavation in Iraq. The tablet does not contain the original trial record. It is a condensed summary and description of courtroom proceedings recorded for study and exposition in Mesopotamian schools. The text of the case describes a trial for murder that took place in the sacred temple city of Nippur during the reign of Ur- Ninurta (circa 1923 - circa 1896 B.C.E.) of Isin. Two men, Nanna-sig and Ku-Enlila, and a slave named Enlilennam were accused of killing Lu-Inana, a nishakkumpriest in the temple of Nippur. According to the record of the trial, the defendants had informed the victim's wife that they had murdered her husband, but the woman, Nin-dada, kept the identity of her husband's...