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.
“… which Lulu stole, all together.”
This tablet is an inventory: bronze and copper objects, a pin, a seal of lapis lazuli, silver, gold beads and carnelian beads. Only the last line says why anyone wrote the list. The things were stolen.
It comes from Umma, in what is now southern Iraq. CDLI dates it to the Ur III period, about 2100 to 2000 BC, but no year is written on it. The tablet is now in the Yale Babylonian Collection.
The list
The front starts with metalwork. Two bronze objects called a-sal4, probably vessels. A copper zi-a-szi, a word we cannot identify. A copper szen-szu2, probably a kind of pot. A copper ring of ten shekels, described as ku3, which may mean “bright”. Three more copper rings of a type called gibtum. And a bronze tu-di-da, a pin, probably a toggle pin for fastening a garment, weighing four shekels.
Then the precious things: “1 lapis-lazuli seal, its weight 1 shekel”; half a shekel of silver; six gold za-har; six carnelian za-har; and two za-nim. The element za marks stones and beads, so these were probably beads or small ornaments. Nim means “fly”, so fly-shaped beads are one possible reading of the last item.
A Mesopotamian shekel was about 8.4 grams. The lapis seal weighed about that much, the bronze pin about 34 grams, and the copper ring about 84 grams.
“Which Lulu stole”
The last two lines read sza3 ki lu2-dingir-ra dam-gar3 lu5-lu5 tesz2-bi ba-an-zuh-a. We translate: “at the place of Lu-dingira, the merchant, which Lulu stole all together.”
We read Lulu as a personal name, the thief. Tesz2-bi means “together”: the whole list went at once. A dam-gar3 was a merchant, a man who traded goods and silver.
The phrase “at the place of Lu-dingira” is less clear. The most natural reading is that the theft happened at the merchant’s house or store, so these were his goods, or goods kept with him. It could also mean that the stolen things ended up with Lu-dingira. The tablet does not settle it.
What the tablet doesn’t tell us
We don’t know who Lulu was, whether he was caught, or whether anything was recovered. The list may record what was taken, what was found, or what had to be repaid.
We don’t know who owned the lapis seal. A seal was rolled or pressed onto clay to mark a person’s authority, so its loss would have mattered to someone.
We don’t know what several of the objects were. A-sal4, zi-a-szi, szen-szu2, gibtum and za-har are all uncertain to us.
And we don’t know the year, or which office kept this list.
Theft on clay
Thefts usually turn up in Ur III records through what followed: oaths, confessions, guarantees and repayments. An earlier post in this series, The Goat That Was Stolen and Cooked, is a receipt that names a goat thief. Here we have a different kind of record: the list of what went missing.
Here we are speculating, but the mix of objects, household metalwork alongside beads, silver and a seal, looks like the contents of a store or a strongbox rather than things picked up at random.
The tablet in full (our translation)
Front: 2 bronze a-sal4 (vessels?). 1 copper zi-a-szi (?). 1 copper szen-szu2 (a pot?). 10 shekels: a copper ring, bright (?). 3 copper rings of gibtum type (?). 1 bronze toggle pin, its weight 4 shekels. 1 lapis-lazuli seal,
Back: its weight 1 shekel. ½ shekel of silver (reading unsure). 6 gold za-har (beads?). 6 carnelian za-har (beads?). 2 “fly” stones (?). At the place of Lu-dingira, the merchant, which Lulu stole all together.
How we read it
Key lines in transliteration: 1(disz) kiszib3 za-gin3 / ki-la2-bi 1(disz) gin2, “1 lapis-lazuli seal, its weight 1 shekel”; 6(disz) za-har ku3-sig17, “6 gold za-har”; and lu5-lu5 tesz2-bi ba-an-zuh-a, “which Lulu stole all together”, from zuh, “to steal”.
Uncertain: the names of several objects; the silver line; and whether Lu-dingira was the victim or the place where the goods ended up.
Our confidence: medium. The structure and the verb are clear; many of the objects are 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 (SAT 3, 2000, transliterations of Yale tablets). Dates use the conventional middle chronology and are approximate.