Position in chronology
SAA 11 217. Fragment of Census Tablet (ADB 17)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (i 1) [...] vegetable [garden; ......]sâ; [... in all], 3. (Break) (ii 1) [x hectares] of arable land [...], [x hectares] under cultivation [therein]. (ii 3) [... vegetable] garden [......] (ii 5) Se['-......]; (ii 6) Di[......]; (ii 7) 20 hectares [of arable land ...], in the town of Me[h...]. (ii 9) [A]šira, 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/P334947/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x x x GIŠ.SAR] Ú.SAR / [x x x x x x x]+⸢x⸣-sa-a / [x x x PAB?] 03 / [x x ANŠE] A.ŠÀ [x x x] / [x x ANŠE] ar-šú [ina ŠÀ-bi] / [x x x x] GIŠ.SAR [Ú.SAR] / m[x x x x x x x x] / mse-[eʾ—x x x x x x] / mdi-[x x x x x x x] / 20 ANŠE [A.ŠÀ? x x x x x] / ina URU.me-⸢eḫ⸣-[x x x x] / [ma]-ši*-ra* :. [x x x x x x]
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (provincial or military), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 11, 1995). ORACC text P334947.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334947). 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/P334947/.
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.