Position in chronology
SAA 07 044. Memorandum re Peculations in the Temple (ADD 1069)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [... & o]f the day. (2) [...] & Ubru-Nabû (3) [...] & sheep of the temple (4) [...] & of the oxen (5) 1/2 [min]a & of the cupbearer (6) 14 shekels & of ... [...] (7) 12 shekels & of .[...] (8) 3 shekels & o[f ...] (9) 6[+x shekels ......] (Break) (r 1) In all, 3 minas [...], (r 2) silver of the house of [...]. (r 3) [They] h[ave restituted] the iniquity and injustice, the crime and theft of Bubû [t]o the [...]ean [...]. (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/P335884/
Why it matters
Transliteration
PAB* 03* ⸢MA*.NA*⸣ [x x x] / KUG.UD ša É ⸢x⸣+[x x x] / pir-ku u la ket-tu [o] / ṣar-tu u šar*-qu-tú* [o] / šá mbu-bu-u* [o] / [a?]-⸢na?⸣ LÚ*.[x x] / [(x) x x]+⸢x⸣-la?-sa-a.a ⸢us⸣-[x x]
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (palace or temple), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 7, 1992). ORACC text P335884.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335884). 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/P335884/.
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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.