Index of translations of Sumerian tablets
Sumerian clay tablets that, as far as we could check, had no published English translation. We translate them ourselves. The page linked above is the index of the series. A new tablet is a new row there, not a list copied into every story.
All translations are new and unofficial, made from transliterations on the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI), and may contain errors. Tablet images are credited to the holding institutions and CDLI. Dates use the conventional middle chronology and are approximate.
“From the delivery of the property of Dabi, the soldier.”
That line, near the end of a small tablet from Puzriš-Dagan, in what is now southern Iraq, tells us where a whole herd came from. It was written around 2043 BC, probably in the fourth year of King Amar-Suen of Ur. Above it, a scribe listed 55 cattle and donkeys and the four people who received them on a single day.
The four could hardly be more different: a man from Mari, far up the Euphrates; a man called the king’s brother; a judge; and a lamentation singer.
Four names, one herd
The first share goes to “Aqbani, the man of Mari”: 5 oxen, 2 cows, 2 male donkeys, 5 female donkeys and a two-year-old donkey. The tablet adds that they went “via Ahu-waqar, the envoy”. The word is sukkal, which the dictionary gives as “civil servant” or “diplomat, envoy”.
Next, 4 oxen, 2 cows, 4 male donkeys and a female donkey go to “Ur-Enlila, the brother of the king”. Then 3 oxen, a two-year-old ox and 2 cows go to “Ur-saga, the judge”.
The largest share, 20 cows of different ages, goes to “Dada, the gala”, a lamentation singer. An official named ARAD-mu saw the transfer through. His title, maškim, is an administrator or bailiff.
Counting to 55
Not every animal reached a new owner. “1 cow with suckling calf, 1 […], dead”: these went “to the storeroom for sealed goods”, e2-kišib-ba in Sumerian.
Then the arithmetic. The four shares come to 15, 11, 6 and 20 animals, which makes 52. The dead cow, her calf and the broken entry bring it to 55, the number written on the tablet’s left edge. The total only works if the calf counts as an animal of its own.
The record ends with the bookkeeping: “5th day. Booked out from Abba-saga”, in Ki-siki-Ninazu, the fourth month of the Puzriš-Dagan calendar.
Whose property?
The key line is the one we started with: “from the delivery of the property of Dabi, the soldier”. The word for property, niŋgur, is plain enough, and aga’us is “a professional soldier”.
The name is our weakest point. “Dabi” is a reading of two signs, and “the soldier” may not be his title at all: it could be a separate heading.
What the tablet doesn’t tell us
We don’t know why Dabi’s property was handed over. The tablet doesn’t say whether he had died, owed something or lost it some other way, and we won’t guess.
We don’t know why these four people received animals, or whether they were gifts, payments or allocations. The verb says only that the animals were “booked out”.
We don’t know who Aqbani was beyond “the man of Mari”, or what Ahu-waqar the envoy was doing there.
We don’t know which king Ur-Enlila was brother to, or whether “brother of the king” is meant literally.
A collecting point for the state’s animals
Puzriš-Dagan, today’s Drehem, was founded by King Šulgi as an administrative centre. The state’s cattle, sheep and goats were “centralized at Drehem and subsequently redistributed to temples, its officials, and royal palaces”. This tablet is one small piece of that machinery.
Mari lay on the Euphrates, in what is now Syria, on the trade routes between Sumer and the west. A princess of Mari married a son of Ur-Nammu, founder of the dynasty, and Mari was “nominally under Ur hegemony” while keeping its independence. Here we are speculating, but a man of Mari receiving animals through an envoy fits that picture of a neighbour with close ties to Ur.
A gala was a professional singer, “originally specialists in singing lamentations”, and gala made up a significant part of the staff of both temples and palaces.
The year name says only “the en-priestess of Nanna was installed”. CDLI dates the tablet to Amar-Suen’s fourth year, when Enmahgalanna was installed as en-priestess of the moon god. A later year of the same king also installed an en-priestess of Nanna, so the short form leaves a little room.
The tablet in full (our translation)
Front: 5 oxen, 2 cows, 2 male donkeys, 5 female donkeys, 1 two-year-old donkey: for Aqbani, the man of Mari, via Ahu-waqar, the envoy. 4 oxen, 2 cows, 4 male donkeys, 1 female donkey: for Ur-Enlila, the brother of the king. 3 oxen, 1 two-year-old ox, 2 cows:
Back: for Ur-saga, the judge. 8 cows, 6 three-year-old cows, 6 two-year-old cows: for Dada, the lamentation singer. ARAD-mu was the commissioner. 1 cow with suckling calf, 1 […], dead: to the storeroom for sealed goods. From the delivery of the property of Dabi (?), the soldier. 5th day. Booked out from Abba-saga. Month: Ki-siki-Ninazu. Year: the en-priestess of Nanna was installed.
Left edge: 55.
How we read it
Key lines in transliteration: aq-ba-ni lu2 ma-ri2{ki} / giri3 a-hu-wa-qar sukkal, “Aqbani, the man of Mari, via Ahu-waqar, the envoy”; ur-{d}en-lil2-la2 szesz lugal, “Ur-Enlila, the brother of the king”; and sza3 mu-kux(DU) nig2-gur11 da-bi aga3-us2, “from the delivery of the property of Dabi, the soldier”.
Uncertain: the name Dabi, and whether “the soldier” belongs to him; the broken animal on the back; whether “brother of the king” is literal; and the year, which CDLI reads as Amar-Suen 4.
Our confidence: medium-high. The list and the total are clear; the line naming the source is not.
This translation is new and unofficial, made from the CDLI transliteration, and may contain errors. “Untranslated” means we found no translation on CDLI or in the tablet’s publication history (hand copies in MVN 8, 1979). Caveats: B. Lafont reviewed MVN 8 with collations in 1981, and CDLI links the tablet to the BDTNS database; we checked neither for a translation. Dates use the conventional middle chronology and are approximate.
Further reading
- CDLI artifact page for P115520
- Wikipedia, “Puzrish-Dagan”
- Wikipedia, “Mari, Syria”
- Wikipedia, “Gala (priests)”
- CDLI, “Year names of Amar-Suen”
- Wikipedia, “Third Dynasty of Ur”
- ePSD2, the electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary
- Oracc, Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses
Also useful, and not linked here because we have not pinned a stable page: B. Lafont’s review of MVN 8 in Revue d’Assyriologie 75 (1981).