Position in chronology
SAA 07 140. Record of Wine for Singers (ADD 1058+)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) [......]... 1/2 'litre' each; (2) [......], female singer, 1/2 'litre'; (3) [......] 1/2 'litre'; (4) [......] ... 1/2 'litre'; (5) [......] ...[...] 1/4; (6) [......]busi, 1/2 'litre' each; (r 1) [......]s 1/2 'litre' each; (r 2) [......] 1/4; (r 3) [......]... 1/4; (r 4) [......] 3/4 'litre' of wine; (r 5) [......] ... 15 female singers 1/2 'litre' each; (r 6) [......] wine; (r 7) [Total: ...] 2 seahs, 6 3/4 'litres'.
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/P335873/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x x x] ⸢04?⸣-te* 1::2 qa-a.a / [x x x x]-MEŠ* MÍ*.NAR 1::2 qa / [x x x x] 1::2 qa / [x x x x] ⸢x x⸣ 1::2 qa / [x x x x] ⸢x x x⸣ [x x x] 04?-te / [x x x x]+⸢x⸣-bu-si 1::2 qa-a / [x x x x]+⸢x⸣-MEŠ 1::2 ⸢qa⸣-a / [x x x x] 04-te / [x x x x] ⸢sa?⸣-a.a-te 04-te / [x x x x] ⸢03?⸣ 04 qa GEŠTIN-MEŠ / [x x x x]+⸢x⸣ 15? MÍ.NAR-MEŠ 1::2 qa-⸢a⸣ / [x x x x] GEŠTIN-MEŠ / [x x x x] ⸢2(bán)⸣ 06? qa 03 04 qa
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (palace or temple), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 7, 1992). ORACC text P335873.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335873). 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/P335873/.
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.