Position in chronology
SAA 07 012. List of Lodgings for Officials (ADD 0866)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (1) [in all, x: 're]sidence' of the [...]. (2) [...]-ahhe, cohort commander; (3) [Nuš]ku-šarru-uṣur, chief ful[ler] of the queen mother; (5) [in all, 2: the 're]sidence' of the [governor(s)]. (6) [...]-alik-pani, [...] of the [queen] mother; (8) [...]ni, [...]; (9) [NN], [...]; (Rest destroyed)
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/P335707/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[PAB x mu]-⸢šab* LÚ⸣.[x x x x] / [mx x]—⸢PAB⸣-MEŠ LÚ.GAL—ki-⸢ṣir⸣ / [mdPA].⸢TÚG⸣—MAN—PAB LÚ.GAL—TÚG*.[UD] / [o] ša ⸢AMA⸣—[MAN] / [PAB 2] ⸢mu⸣-šab LÚ.EN.[NAM.MEŠ?] / [mdx]—a-lik—pa-ni ⸢LÚ⸣.[x x] / [o ša] AMA—[MAN] / [x x x x]-ni LÚ.[x] / [x x x x x] 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 P335707.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335707). 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/P335707/.
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.