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.
“Its oath has not been sworn. When its oath has been sworn …”
An Umma field account that does not balance. Three entries record barley that is missing, and in the middle the scribe notes that an oath is still to come.
It comes from Umma, in what is now southern Iraq. The year line reads only “the third year after”, without the event it counts from. CDLI tentatively dates it to the 24th year of King Šulgi, around 2071 BC. We follow that date with caution.
Three shortfalls
The first deficit is 9 gur and 40 litres of barley, 2,740 litres, “a deficit of the barley that came out”. A rate follows, “[x]5 litres each”, but one sign is unclear and the tablet does not say what the rate applies to.
The second is 35 gur, 1 barig and 2 ban, 10,580 litres, “barley that did not come out”. Before that phrase stands a damaged word that CDLI restores, with a question mark, as Kuli, perhaps a person’s name.
The third, on the back, is 61 gur and 3 barig, 18,480 litres, again “barley that did not come out”. Together the three come to 31,800 litres. That total is ours.
We read “came out” and “did not come out” (e3) as barley that the harvest did or did not yield. That is an interpretation.
An oath still to come
“Its oath has not been sworn. When its oath has been sworn, its … is to be removed.”
The last phrase, sza3-gu2 zi-zi-dam, is obscure. Zi-zi means “to remove” or “to lift”, and sza3-gu2 may refer to an account total. Our best reading is that the shortfall will be struck out once someone swears to it. That is our interpretation, and it may be wrong.
So this is a record from the middle of a process: a loss has been found, but not yet settled.
The field of Kamari
“Field of Kamari. Lugamu took it over.” The field was named after a place, Kamari. The verb i3-dab5, “took over”, is used when someone takes responsibility for goods or people. Lugamu seems to have taken over the deficits, or the field. The tablet does not say which.
31,800 litres is a large amount of grain. At the standard Ur III rate of one shekel of silver to 300 litres of barley, it would be worth about 106 shekels, nearly two minas of silver. That conversion is ours and only a rough guide.
What the tablet doesn’t tell us
We don’t know who had to swear, or what they had to swear to.
We don’t know whether Lugamu was to blame for the shortfall or was simply the man now answerable for it.
We don’t know what the rate in the first line measures.
And we don’t know the year for certain.
Counting what wasn’t there
Ur III accounts set targets and recorded deficits, la2-ia3, when they were not met. R. K. Englund has described how such deficits were carried forward in the accounts of the people responsible. Earlier in this series, Counted Short showed an Umma bookkeeper turning runaway workers into a shortfall.
Here the shortfall is grain, and the way out of it, if our reading is right, is an oath.
The tablet in full (our translation)
Front: Deficit: 9 gur 40 litres of barley (2,740 litres), at [x]5 litres each (?); it is a deficit of the barley that came out. Deficit: 35 gur 1 barig 2 ban of barley (10,580 litres): Kuli (?): it is barley that did not come out. Its oath has not been sworn. When its oath has been sworn, its … is to be removed (?).
Back: Deficit: 61 gur 3 barig of barley (18,480 litres): barley that did not come out. Field of Kamari. Lugamu took it over. Year: the third after (…).
How we read it
Key lines in transliteration: la2-ia3, “deficit”; sze nu-e3-am3, “it is barley that did not come out”; nam-erim2-bi nu-ku5, “its oath has not been sworn”; nam-erim2-bi u3-ku5, “when its oath has been sworn”; sza3-gu2 zi-zi-dam, “is to be removed (?)”; and i3-dab5, “took over”.
Uncertain: the rate in line 1; the restored word ku-<li?>; the phrase sza3-gu2 zi-zi-dam; the sense of “came out”; and the year.
Our confidence: medium. The amounts and the oath clauses are clear; one phrase, one name and the date 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 (MVN 15, 1991, transliterations of tablets in American collections). Dates use the conventional middle chronology and are approximate.
Further reading
- CDLI artifact page for P118561
- R. K. Englund, “Equivalency Values and the Command Economy of the Ur III Period in Mesopotamia” (2012)
- CDLI Wiki, “The Province of Umma”
- Wikipedia, “Mesopotamian units of measurement”
- CDLI Wiki, Šulgi, including the year names
- Wikipedia, “Third Dynasty of Ur”
- ePSD2, the electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary