Position in chronology
SAA 07 013. List of “Architects” and Scribes (ADD 0769)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) Aššur-bani-ahhe; (2) Nabû-rešu-išši; (3) Kalbu; (4) Banini; (5) Lešir-Adad; (6) Urdu; (7) [total], 6 architects. (8) [...]ayu; (9) [...k]usu; (r 1) Nabû-šar-ahhešu; (r 2) Nabû-mušeṣi; (r 3) Aššur-šumu-iddina; (r 4) Mar-Issar; (r 5) total, 6 scribes.
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/P335630/
Why it matters
Transliteration
maš-šur—DÙ—PAB-MEŠ / mdPA—SAG—i-ši / mkal-bu / mba-ni-ni / mSI.SÁ—dIM / mur-du / [PAB] ⸢06⸣ LÚv.še-lap-pa-a.a / [mx]-a.a / [mx]-⸢ku?⸣-su / mdPA—MAN—PAB-MEŠ-šú / mdPA—mu-še-ṣi / maš-šur—MU—AŠ / mDUMU—15 / PAB 06 LÚv.A.BA-MEŠ
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (palace or temple), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 7, 1992). ORACC text P335630.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335630). 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/P335630/.
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.