COURTESY OF THE ISRAEL MUSEUM

TITLE TRANSFER. This tablet records a real estate transaction from the autumn of 698 B.C.E. Aya-shebshi sold a field to Marduk-bela-usur, and seven people witnessed the transfer of title. Although this sale was recorded in the Akkadian language, the names are possibly Babylonian, and the deal was conducted according to conventional Mesopotamian practices, this tablet was discovered at Tel Hadid in Israel. It reveals that the Assyrian Empire deported a new population to ancient Israel in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.E.