Position in chronology
SAA 11 115. List of Horses and Mules (ADD 1140)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (1') [5] — Nasi...; (2') 5 horses — Basasu; (4') 5 ditto — Ispute; (5') 5 ditto — Il-hari. (6') Total, 20 horses (for) teams. (7) 5 mules — Nergal-nadin-ahi. (Break) (12) Total, 18 hor[ses ...]. (13) 3, Nabû-šarru-...[...]; (14) 3, In[...]; (15) 3, Ṭab-ša[r-...]: (16) in all, 9 horses [...] (r 1) [x] mules, 2 horses — the house of the [...]. (r 4) 1 horse, 1 mule, 1 equid — the house of the [...]. (r 6) 1 mul[e, ...] (r 7) 1 ditto — the house [...], (r 8) 1 ditto [...], (r 9) 1, (of the) horses [...], (r 10) 1 ditto [...], (r 11) 1 ditto [...] (Rest destroyed or too broken for translation)
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/P335932/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[05] mna-⸢si?-x x x x⸣ / ⸢05⸣ ANŠE.KUR.RA-MEŠ / mba-sa-su / 05 :. mis-pu-te / 05? : mDINGIR?—ḫa-a-ri? / PAB 20 ANŠE.⸢KUR.RA-MEŠ⸣ ú-rat / 05 ANŠE.GÌR.NUN.NA-MEŠ [o] / mdU.GUR—SUM—PAB [(x)] / PAB 18 ⸢ANŠE⸣ [x x x x] / 03 mdPA—MAN—⸢x⸣+[x (x)] / 03 min-[x x x] / 03 mDÙG.GA—⸢IM⸣—[x x] / PAB 09 ANŠE.KUR-MEŠ [x x x] / [x] ANŠE.ku-din / 02 ANŠE.KUR-MEŠ / É LÚv.⸢x⸣+[x x] / 01 KUR 01 ANŠE.GÌR.[NUN.NA] / 01…
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (provincial or military), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 11, 1995). ORACC text P335932.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335932). 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/P335932/.
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.