The oldest marriage contract in Turkey was found to be 4,000 years old, with the agreement stipulating the requirement of reproduction, thus making this the first direct mention of infertility. The wedding, engraved on a stone tablet, says that if the couple can not have a child within two years of marriage, a slave girl will be adopted as an alternative to the wife. The Assyrian contract was written with the use of wedges, one of the oldest forms of writing. The contract states that these slaves, known as Herodol, are freed after the birth of the first child. "A female slave will be released after the birth of her first child to ensure that no family remains without a child," said Professor Ahmed Birkiz Turb, a senior researcher at Turkey's Harran University. The stone was found by archaeologists from a number of Turkish universities in the province of Kayseri, which is located in central Turkey, and is now displayed in the Museum of Antiquities in Istanbul as the first text that mentions the diagnosis of human sterility. The Assyrian empire was known as the Mesopotamian civilization. It dates back to the 25th century BC and is located in an area of ancient Asia. It was the first time people gathered in major cities, the rise of governments and the learning of writing. The Assyrian Empire is one of the oldest civilizations in the history of the world, along with a group of Mesopotamian countries such as ancient Babylon and Sumerian cities. The Turkish Kultep region of Kayseri province, where the clay slab was found, was home to a settlement of the ancient Assyrian empire from the 21st century to the 18th century BC. More than a thousand clay tablets written in cuneiform script were found in the area in 1925, revealing the rich and complex cultural heritage of the site
