Position in chronology
SAA 07 109. List of Textiles (ADD 0973)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (i 1) [......] ditto [......]; (i 2) [...... di]tto ditto ditto, pomegranates; (i 3) [......] ditto ditto ditto, the fringe knotted, 1 1/2 mina; (i 4) [......] ditto ditto ditto ditto knotted, 1 1/2 mina; (i 5) [......] ditto ditto ditto ... ... the fringe ... knotted, 1 1/2 minas; (i 6) [......] ditto ditto ditto ditto, textile, ..., knotted [1] 1/2; (i 8) [......] ditto ditto, knotted 1 1/4 mina; (i 9) [......]s; (i 10) [......] 1/4; (Break) (ii 1) [tot]al [......]; (ii 2) 1 urnutu-garment, black, edging, the front [...], knotted, (with) a bull, ..., ...; (ii 4) 2…
Source: Fales, F.M. & Postgate, J.N. 1992. Imperial Administrative Records, Part I: Palace and Temple Administration. SAA 7. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa07/P335801/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x x] ⸢:.*⸣ [x x x x x x x] / [x x x] ⸢:.⸣ :. :. NU*.⸢ÚR*.MA?⸣ [o] / [x x x] :. :. :. KA ⸢sa?⸣-a*.a* 01* 1::2* MA* / [x x x] :. :. :. :. sa-a.a 01* 1::2* MA / [x x x] :. :. :. bar ḫu KA MA sa-a 01 1::2 / [x x x] :. :. :. :. ši-tú* ši su be / [o] sa-a [01?] 1::2 / [x x x x x :.] :. :. sa-a 01 MA* 04*-tú / [x x x x x x x x] ⸢x⸣.ḪI.A / [x x x x x x x x] ⸢04*-tú*⸣ / ⸢PAB⸣ [x x x x x x] / 01 ur-nat…
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (palace or temple), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 7, 1992). ORACC text P335801.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335801). source
Translation excerpted from Fales, F.M. & Postgate, J.N. 1992. Imperial Administrative Records, Part I: Palace and Temple Administration. SAA 7. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa07/P335801/.
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.