Position in chronology
SAA 11 151. Note Relating to Temple Personnel(?) (ADD 0874)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (ii 3) Babila[yu], (ii 4) Sin- ...[...], (ii 5) Ginnaya, (ii 6) Aššur-šumu-ukin, (ii 7) ... return, (ii 8) [(...)] lamentation priest, (ii 9) he [(...)] (ii 10) musician(s) (ii 11) Ahu-lu[...], (ii 12) [o]f the temple of [DN] (ii 13) [...] in [...] (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/P335715/
Why it matters
Transliteration
⸢ga?⸣-[x x x] / kid?-[x x x] / mKÁ.DINGIR-[a.a] / md30—⸢x⸣-[(x)] / mgi-ni-ia* [o] / maš-šur—MU*—GIN [o] / BAD-tú ta-a.a-ru / [(x x)] UŠ.KU / šu-tu-⸢ma?⸣ [x x] / [LÚ?].NAR-[(MEŠ)] / mPAB?—lu-[x] / ⸢ša*⸣ É [x] / [x] ina [x x]
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (provincial or military), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 11, 1995). ORACC text P335715.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335715). 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/P335715/.
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.