Telepinu Proclamation

The Telepinu Proclamation, also known as the Edict of Telepinu, is a Hittite edict written during the reign of King Telipinu, around 1525 to 1500 BC, distinct from this atlas's separately recorded Hittite Laws. Telipinu is remembered chiefly for drawing up the proclamation, which set out rules governing royal succession after a period of dynastic violence, and it also preserves an account of Mursili I's conquest of Babylon for which no other contemporary Hittite record survives. Scholars debate whether the text functioned primarily as a legal instrument establishing succession rules, primarily as a historical narrative, or as both at once, but it remains a central source for reconstructing Hittite royal history and political practice of its era.