Position in chronology
SAA 11 186. Five Recipients ...
Translation · reference
High confidence(1) To Adad-aplu-[iddina] (2) To Marduk-nadin-[...] (3) To Aššur-...[...] (4) To [NN], (5) son of [NN] (6) To [NN] (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/P336719/
Why it matters
Transliteration
a-na mdIM—A—[AŠ?] / a-na mdŠU—SUM—[x x] / a-na maš-šur—mu-[x x x] / a-na [mx x x x x] / ⸢DUMU⸣ [x x x x x] / a-na m⸢d⸣[x x x x]
Scholarly note
Neo-Assyrian administrative record (provincial or military), edited by F.M. Fales & J.N. Postgate (SAA 11, 1995). ORACC text P336719.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P336719). 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/P336719/.
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.