Position in chronology
SAA 11 093. Memorandum about Cattle (ADD 1091)
Translation — scholar edition
SAA 11(1) 4 oxen recorded on two sets of writing-boards, at the disposal of Nabû-ahu-iddina, Ilu-patin (and) NN ...... (5) Demanded, ascended and taken away. (6) (On the) 14th day of month of Nisan (I) he led the oxen away. (Rest destroyed)
State Archives of Assyria, volume 11 — scholar edition (ORACC).
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Transliteration
04 GUD-MEŠ šá 02-ni-tú* / GIŠ.ZU-MEŠ ina pa-an / mdPA—PAB—AŠ mIGI—pa-tin / 01 šu id ab tú pu u tú 20 bu 30 / er-šú e-lu-u na*-šú-u / UD 14-KÁM šá ITI.⸢BARAG⸣ / GUD-MEŠ i-tab-ka
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (provincial or military), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 11, 1995). ORACC text P335901.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P335901). 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/P335901/.
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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.