Position in chronology
SAA 07 046. Memorandum re Payments (ADD 1062)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (1) 1 mina [...]; (2) the city of Cal[ah ...]; (3) 3 minas of si[lver ...]; (4) 2 homers [...]. (5) 2 shekels [...] (6) from ...[...]; (7) 79 [homers ...] (8) 13 m[inas of silver]. (9) They say: "... [...] (10) from the [...] (r 1) ... [...] (r 2) 79 homers [...] (r 3) 13 minas of sil[ver ...] (r 4) which after [...] (r 5) we paid in fu[ll ...] (r 6) the document [...]" (Break) (e. 1) They say: "We did not [......] (e. 2) the people of N[N ...]
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/P335877/
Why it matters
Transliteration
01 MA.NA [x x x x x x] / URU.kal-⸢ḫi?⸣ [x x x x x] / 03 MA.NA ⸢KUG?⸣.[UD x x x x x] / 02 ANŠE [x x x x x x] / 02 GÍN*-MEŠ* [x x x x x x] / TAv* i*-[x x x x x x] / 79* [ANŠE x x x x x x] / 13* ⸢MA?⸣.[NA KUG.UD (x x x)] / ma* as*-[x x x x x x] / TAv* ⸢LÚ*⸣.[x x x x] / i-ba?-[x x x x x x] / 79 ANŠE [x x x x x] / 13 MA.NA ⸢KUG⸣.[UD? x x x x x] / ša ur-ki [x x x x x x] / nu*-šá-li-⸢mu*⸣-[u-ni x x x x]…
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (palace or temple), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 7, 1992). ORACC text P335877.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335877). 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/P335877/.
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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.