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.
“Ahum-mēlum, governor of Sabum, received it.”
This guest of Girsu’s supply office gets 180 litres of beer, 180 litres of baked goods, four litres of sesame oil and two sheep. The man after him on the tablet gets five litres of beer and five of bread.
The tablet comes from Girsu, in what is now southern Iraq, around 2030 BC, the eighth year of King Šu-Suen. The man who receives the large share is a governor (ensi2), not of a Sumerian city but of Sabum, a land to the east.
Two entries, two scales
The front holds the governor’s share: “180 litres of ordinary beer, 180 litres of baked goods, 4 litres of sesame oil, 2 sheep: Ahum-mēlum, governor of Sabum, received it.” The beer and the baked goods are measured in barig, a unit of 60 litres. Three of them make 180.
The back has a second, much smaller entry: “5 litres of beer, 5 litres of bread, 5 shekels of sesame oil: Dannum, man of the great weapon.” Then “via Dannum”, meaning Dannum was the man responsible for the delivery. The account closes with “expenditure, judge(s)”, the month Amar-a-a-si, and the year “the great barge was caulked”.
The governor’s beer is thirty-six times Dannum’s. Here we are speculating, but a share that size looks like supplies for a party travelling with him, not for one man.
Where was Sabum?
Sabum was one of the lands of southwestern Iran named in Ur III texts. Its exact site is not known. In a 2023 study of the historical geography of western Iran, Steve Renette places Sabum most likely between the city of Der and Susa, and counts it as part of Elam.
So the governor of Sabum was a ruler from the Elamite lands, visiting a Sumerian province. Girsu’s accounts often record envoys and Elamites passing through, as in Two Goats for the Road to Elam and Flour for the Road East.
His name, a-hu-um-me-lum, which we read Ahum-mēlum, looks Akkadian rather than Elamite: it begins with ahum, “brother”. We can’t tell from this tablet whether he was a local ruler or an official appointed by the Ur III state.
The man of the great weapon
Dannum is called lu2 {gesz}tukul-gu-la, “man of the great weapon”. Men called “man of the weapon” turn up in other Girsu travel tablets we have read. The title seems to mark an armed man, perhaps a soldier or escort. “Great weapon” may be a higher rank or a particular unit. We don’t know.
Here we are speculating, but the pairing is suggestive. A visiting governor receives a large allocation, and an armed man named Dannum takes charge of it and receives a small ration of his own. He may have been the governor’s escort on the road through the province.
What the tablet doesn’t tell us
We don’t know why the governor of Sabum was in Girsu, where he was going, or how many people travelled with him.
We don’t know whether Dannum belonged to the governor’s party or to the province of Girsu.
We don’t know exactly what the “baked goods”, nig2-du8-a, were: bread, cakes, or something else.
And we don’t know why the expense was booked to “the judge(s)”, di-ku5. The tablet does not explain it.
The tablet in full (our translation)
Front: 180 litres of ordinary beer, 180 litres of baked goods, 4 litres of sesame oil, 2 sheep: Ahum-mēlum (?), governor of Sabum, received it.
Back: 5 litres of beer, 5 litres of bread, 5 shekels of sesame oil: Dannum, man of the great weapon. Via Dannum. Expenditure, judge(s). Month: Amar-a-a-si. Year: the great barge was caulked.
How we read it
Key lines in transliteration: a-hu-um-me-lum ensi2 sa-bu-um-ma{ki}, “Ahum-mēlum, governor of Sabum”; da-an-num2 lu2 {gesz}tukul-gu-la, “Dannum, man of the great weapon”; and zi-ga di-ku5, “expenditure, judge(s)”.
Uncertain: the exact reading of the governor’s name; what nig2-du8-a were; and what the booking to the judge(s) means.
Our confidence: medium to high. Every line is readable; the purpose behind the supplies is not stated.
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 (MVN 15, 1991, transliterations of tablets in American collections. A different Kelsey Museum tablet of this kind, KM 89013, was published by N. Brisch in 2003; this is not that tablet). Dates use the conventional middle chronology and are approximate.