Position in chronology
SAA 11 230. Fragmentary Schedule of Land (ADD 1084)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (3) 400 hectare[s of land ...], (4) 10 orch[ards ...] in the village of [...]; (6) [x or]chard[s ...] in the village of Ka[r-....] (7) in (the district of) the town of Sa[rugi] (r 1) 20 hectares [of land ...], (r 2) 2 orch[ards ...], in the town of Šu[...]. (r 4) 80 hectares of s[own land ...], (r 5) 20 ..., 20 [...] ...... (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/P335896/
Why it matters
Transliteration
10 [x x x x x x x] / m[x x x x x x x] / 04-me ⸢ANŠE⸣ [x x x x] / 10 GIŠ.⸢SAR?⸣-[MEŠ x x x x] / ina URU.É—[x x x x] / [x GIŠ].SAR-[MEŠ x x x] / [ina] ⸢URU?⸣.É?—⸢kar?⸣-[x x x x] / ina URU.sa-⸢x⸣+[x x x x] / 20 ANŠE [A.ŠÀ x x x x] / 02 GIŠ.SAR-[MEŠ x x x] / ina URU.šu-[x x x x x] / 80 ⸢ANŠE ŠE?⸣ [x x x x] / 20 ŠÚ? 20 [x x x x x] / [x] ⸢x 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 P335896.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335896). 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/P335896/.
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.