Position in chronology
SAA 11 020. List of Rations(?) (ADD 0982)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (i 1) [...] ditto, (i 2) [...] 20 ditto, (i 3) [...] 15 ditto, (i 4) [total] 70, at 2 seahs each. (Break) (ii 1) 2 [...], (ii 2) total 55 [...]. (ii 3) 28 15 [...], (ii 4) 40 11 [...], (ii 5) 17 10 [...], (ii 6) total 85 [...]. (Break) (r i 1) 3 [...], (r i 2) 2 15 ditto [...], (r i 3) total 5, at 2 seahs each. (Break) (r ii 1) total 4, at 1 seah each. (r ii 2) 3 15 ditto, (r ii 3) 2 14 ditto, (r ii 4) 8 10 ditto (Rest destroyed)
Source: Fales, F.M. & Postgate, J.N. 1995. Imperial Administrative Records, Part II: Provincial and Military Administration. SAA 11. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa11/P335807/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x x] :. / [x x] 20 :. / [x x] 15 :. / [PAB] ⸢70?⸣ 2(bán)-a.a / 02 [x x x] / PAB 55 [x x] / 28 ⸢15⸣ [x x] / 40 11 [x x] / 17 10 [x x] / PAB 85* [x x] / 03 [x x x] / 02 15 :. [o] / PAB 05 2(bán)?-a.a [o?] / PAB 04 1(bán)-a.a / 03 15 :. / 02 14? :. / ⸢08⸣ 10 :.
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (provincial or military), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 11, 1995). ORACC text P335807.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335807). source
Translation excerpted from Fales, F.M. & Postgate, J.N. 1995. Imperial Administrative Records, Part II: Provincial and Military Administration. SAA 11. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa11/P335807/.
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.