Position in chronology
SAA 11 201. Census Tablet (ADB 01)
Translation · reference
High confidence(i 1) Arnabâ, son of Se'-aplu-iddina, gardener; his mother: a total of 2. (i 4) Ahabû, gardener; Sagibu, his son, adolescent; Il-abadi, his son, of 4 spans' height; 2 women: a total of 5 people. (i 8) 10,000 stalks of vine; two houses; 10 hectares of arable land of their own. (i 10) Total, in the town of Hananâ, in the district of the city of Sarugi. (i 12) Sin-na'id, gardener; Nusku-ila'i, ditto; Našuh-qatar, his son, of 4 spans' height; 1 woman; 2 daughters: a total of 5. (i 16) Ahunu, gardener; his mother: a total of 2 people. (i 18) In all, 3 gardeners, 1 weaned son, 2 women, 2 daughters,…
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/P334934/
Why it matters
Transliteration
mar-na-ba-a / A mse-eʾ—A—AŠ LÚv.NU.GIŠ.SAR / AMA-šú PAB 02 / mPAB-bu-u LÚv.NU.GIŠ.SAR / msa-gi-bu A-šú ṣa / mDINGIR—a-ba-di A-šú 04 / 02 MÍ-MEŠ PAB 05 / 10-lim GIŠ.til-lut 02* É*-MEŠ* / 10 ANŠE A.ŠÀ ra-man-i-šú-nu / PAB URU.ḫa-na-na-a / ina URU.sa-ru-gi / m30—I LÚv.NU.GIŠ.SAR / mdPA.TÚG—DINGIR-a.a LÚv.:. / mna-áš-ḫu—qa-tar A-šú 04 / 01 MÍ 02 DUMU.MÍ-MEŠ PAB 05 / mPAB-u-nu LÚv.NU.GIŠ.SAR / AMA-šú…
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (provincial or military), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 11, 1995). ORACC text P334934.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334934). 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/P334934/.
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.