Position in chronology
SAA 11 023. Record of Grain Deliveries (ADD 1101)
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) 17 homers — Šemka[ya] (2) 11 ditto — Balimani (3) 5 ditto 4 seahs — Benê (4) 3 ditto 2 seahs — Ubadi (5) 5 ditto 5 seahs — Barikî (6) 6 ditto 6 seahs — Ninuayu (7) 7 ditto — Labani (8) 3 ditto — Adad-šallim (9) 1 ditto 6 seahs — Baruhu-il (10) 8 ditto — Illil-šumu-imb[i] (11) 2 ditto — Ya... (12) 2 ditto 4 seahs — Kulhazate (13) Total: 70 (homers) 7 seahs (in) bundles to Nineveh. (r 1) 75 homers 7 seahs 7 'litres' ....
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/P335908/
Why it matters
Transliteration
17* ⸢ANŠE⸣ mše-im-ka?-[ia] / 11 :. mba-li-ma-a-ni / 05? :. 4(bán) mbi-e-ni-e / 03 :. 2(bán) mú-ba-a-di / 05 :. 5(bán) mba-ri-ki-i? / 06 :. 6(bán)* mURU.NINA.KI-a.a / 07 :. mla-ba-a-ni / 03 :. mdIM—šal-lim / 01 :. 6(bán) mba-ru-ḫu—DINGIR / 08 :. md⸢BE—MU⸣—im-⸢bi⸣ / 02 :. mia-⸢x⸣-duk? / 02 :. 4(bán) mKUL-ḫa-za-a-te* / PAB 70 7(bán) i*-bi-su* / a-na URU.NINA.KI / 75? ANŠE 7(bán) 07 qa iq-bi?
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (provincial or military), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 11, 1995). ORACC text P335908.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P335908). 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/P335908/.
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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.