Position in chronology
SAA 11 016. Building Progress Report (ADD 0917)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning destroyed) (r i 1) the bitumen loose — (governor of) Arpad. (r i 3) 1 tower, (...) not removed; 1 gutter, not completed, the bitumen loose — (governor of) Mazamua. (r i 7) 1 gutter, not compl[eted], the bitumen loose — Aššur-belu-taqqin. (r i 10) 3/4 of the gateway; 5 towers, the loose beams fixed; [1 g]utter, not completed, (Break) (r ii 2) [... re]moved; the bitumen [...; the ... com]pleted. (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/P335753/
Why it matters
Transliteration
⸢ku⸣-[pi]-⸢ru⸣ ta?-bi?-[u] / ⸢URU.ar⸣-pad-da / ⸢01 i?-si?-tú?⸣ la na-as-ḫa-⸢at?⸣ / 01 bi-[i]-bi la ga-mur / ku-pi-ru ta-bi-u / KUR—za-mu-u / 01 bi-i-bi la ga-[mur] / ku-pi-ru ta-bi-u / maš-šur—U—LAL / 03* ŠU.2-MEŠ ša KÁ.GAL / 05 i-si-ta-te / GIŠ.ÙR-MEŠ ta-bi-u-te / ṣab-bu-tú / [01] ⸢bi-i-bi⸣ la ga-mur / [x x x] ⸢x x x⸣ / [x x x na]-as-ḫa / ku-pi-[ru x x]-te / [x x x x ga]-mur
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (provincial or military), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 11, 1995). ORACC text P335753.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335753). 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/P335753/.
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.