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Case file s909 · Business dynasties · 508 BCE
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508 BCE
Cuneiform tablet: account settlement, Egibi archive: Babylonian; Cuneiform tablet; Clay-Tablets-Inscribed
Cuneiform tablet: account settlement, Egibi archive. Unknown author. CC0, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
c. 508 BC (division of Itti-Marduk-balāṭu's estate; date from a modern chronology)
Place
Babylon and Borsippa, Iraq
Field
banking, trade and land (the Egibi family house) · Business and finance on the timeline
Legal tradition
Neo-Babylonian inheritance law; written division among sons with a larger share for the eldest
Historical event
Persian rule of Babylon and the Babylonian revolts against Xerxes in 484 BC
Business dynastiesFortunes from conquest and slaveryAncient worldMiddle EastIraq

A Babylonian business house split its father's estate on one clay tablet, and its records stop when Babylon revolted against Xerxes

The Egibi family ran a business house in Babylon for five generations. Its archive of about 1,700 clay tablets runs from about 602 to 486 BC. Itti-Marduk-balāṭu headed the house in the third generation. When he died, his three sons divided his estate on a tablet now in the British Museum, BM 30337. The eldest, Marduk-nāṣir-apli, took half of the houses and slaves: 10 houses and more than 40 slaves. His brothers Nabû-ahhē-bulliṭ and Nergal-ušēzib shared the other half: 6 houses, 4 in Babylon and 2 in Borsippa, and 51 slaves. They paid him 6 minas of silver for his larger share of the family house in Borsippa. Farmland, oxen, sheep, donkeys, debts owed to the house and runaway slaves were split in halves. The wives' dowry property was set apart. Each brother kept a copy, and all three promised to answer any later claim against the division together. Marduk-nāṣir-apli led the house until about 487 BC. In 484 BC Babylon revolted against Xerxes. Many of the oldest Babylonian archives, including those of families tied to the old establishment such as the Egibi, end that year.

What the law took from it

A written division with one copy per heir and a joint guarantee kept a large estate out of court, but it gave no protection against a political collapse.

Sources
  1. nabucco.acdh.oeaw.ac.atScholarship
  2. livius.orgPress
  3. Wikipedia (English)Encyclopedia

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “A Babylonian business house split its father's estate on one clay tablet, and its records stop when Babylon revolted against Xerxes,” story s909, https://www.celebrity.estate/a-babylonian-business-house-split-its-508-bc, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Business dynastiesFortunes from conquest and slaveryAncient worldMiddle EastIraq