Position in chronology
SAA 11 204. Fragment of Census Tablet (ADB 22)
Translation · reference
High confidence(Beginning broken away) (i 1) [......] ...; (i 2) [...]-la'uani (Break) (ii 2) 40 hectares of arable land [...], 20 under cultivation [therein]; (ii 4) 10,000 stalks of vi[ne]; 3 houses; 2 threshing-fl[oors]: (ii 6) [all, in] the town [......] (Rest broken away)
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/P334952/
Why it matters
Transliteration
[x x x x x x] šá / [x x x]-⸢la*⸣-a*-u-a-ni / [x x x]+⸢x⸣ [x x x] / 40 A.ŠÀ [x x x] / 20 ar-šú [ina ŠÀ-bi] / 10-lim GIŠ.til-[lit] / 03 É-MEŠ 02 ad-ra-[te] / [PAB? ina?] ⸢URU.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 P334952.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P334952). 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/P334952/.
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.