Position in chronology
SAA 07 006. List of Officials at Court (ADD 0840+)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (i 1) N[N, ...]; (i 2) Za[..., royal body]guard; (i 3) Mu[...], ditto; (i 4) Ad[all]al, adjutant; (i 5) Qurdi-Aššur, prefect of the crown prince; (i 6) Nabû-natkil, cohort commander; (i 7) Ṭab-šar-Nabû, chariot driver; (i 8) Nabû-šezib, chief confectioner of the queen mother; (i 9) Aššur-zaqip, prefect; (i 10) Adad-le'i, ditto; (i 11) Sin-bel-šumate, man of the 'Left' House; (Break) (ii 1) Inurta-alik-pani, [...]; (ii 2) Urad-Adad, [...]; (ii 3) Issar-nadin-ahhe, [...]; (ii 4) Nergal-šarru-uṣur, [...]; (ii 5) Nabû-šarru-uṣur, [...]; (ii 6) Tuqunu-ereš, [...]; (ii 7)…
Source: Fales, F.M. & Postgate, J.N. 1992. Imperial Administrative Records, Part I: Palace and Temple Administration. SAA 7. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa07/P335683/
Why it matters
Transliteration
m⸢d⸣[x x x x x x] / m⸢za⸣-[x x x LÚ.qur]-⸢ZAG*⸣ / mmu-[x x x] LÚ*.:. / ma-⸢da*-lál*⸣ LÚ.⸢DUMU⸣—ŠU.2 / mqur-di—aš-šur LÚ.GAR-nu A—MAN / mdPA—⸢nat⸣-kil LÚ.GAL—ki-ṣir / mDÙG—IM—dPA LÚ.DIB—PA-MEŠ / mdPA—še-zib LÚ.GAL—SUM.NINDA AMA—MAN / maš-šur—za-qip LÚ.GAR-nu / mdIM—ZU LÚ.:. / [m]⸢d⸣30—EN—MU-MEŠ LÚ.šá—É—⸢150*⸣ / [x x x x x] (blank) [o] / [m]⸢d*⸣MAŠ—⸢DU—IGI* LÚ*⸣.[x x x] / mARAD*—10* LÚ*.[x x] /…
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (palace or temple), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 7, 1992). ORACC text P335683.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335683). source
Translation excerpted from Fales, F.M. & Postgate, J.N. 1992. Imperial Administrative Records, Part I: Palace and Temple Administration. SAA 7. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa07/P335683/.
Related tablets
Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.