Index of English Translations of Sumerian Clay 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.
“If the 10 days’ labour is not returned, he will weigh out ½ shekel of silver.”
A small labour contract. A man takes ten days’ wages before doing the work, and swears by the king to pay a penalty if he does not do it.
It comes from Nippur, in what is now southern Iraq, from the third month of the second year of King Ibbi-Suen, the year “the en of Inanna of Uruk was chosen by omen”, around 2027 BC.
Paid first
“Wages for 10 days, to pull up gug plants: from Ursaga, Guda received them.”
The word a2 means “arm”, and so “labour” or “wages for labour”. Guda took the wages from Ursaga before the work was done. The job was to pull up gug plants, which we cannot identify. With the plant marker in front of the word, they may have been a reed, a rush or a weed.
The tablet does not say how much the wages were.
The penalty
“(As) workers for the garden: if the 10 days’ labour is not returned, he will weigh out ½ shekel of silver. He swore by the king.”
Half a shekel is about four grams of silver. In the standard Ur III equivalence, one shekel of silver was worth 300 litres of barley, so the penalty was worth roughly 150 litres. That conversion is ours, and only a rough guide.
The penalty is a promise, not a payment. Guda owes ten days of work. Only if the work is not “returned” does silver come into it. The word “if” is not written; the condition is implied by the grammar.
Witnesses
“Before Engur-engur, before Uš-saga.” The tablet was sealed, but the inscription on the seal is too broken to read.
Here we are speculating, but Ursaga looks like a man with a garden to clear and wages to spare, hiring help ahead of the work. The tablet does not describe him.
What the tablet doesn’t tell us
We don’t know how much Guda was paid, or in what: barley, silver or something else.
We don’t know whether he did the work.
We don’t know who Ursaga was, or whose seal was rolled on the tablet.
And we don’t know exactly what gug plants were.
Oaths in Nippur
Private agreements from Ur III Nippur often end with an oath by the king and a list of witnesses. Earlier in this series, Bail in Nippur and Out of Custody in Nippur used the same kind of formula for people held in custody. Here it secures something smaller: ten days in a garden.
Ibbi-Suen was the last king of the Ur III dynasty. His second year came early in a reign that ended with the fall of Ur.
The tablet in full (our translation)
Front: Wages for 10 days, to pull up gug plants (?): from Ursaga, Guda received (them).
Back: (As) workers for the garden: if the 10 (days’) labour is not returned, he will weigh out ½ shekel of silver. He swore by the king. Before Engur-engur, before Uš-saga. Month: Sig-ga.
Left edge: Year: the en of Inanna of Uruk was chosen by omen.
Seal: [inscription broken].
How we read it
Key lines in transliteration: a2 u4 1(u)-kam, “wages for 10 days”; {u2}gug4 zi2-de3, “to pull up gug plants”; a2 1(u)-kam nu-gi4, “the 10 (days’) labour is not returned”; 1/2(disz) gin2 ku3 la2-e-de3, “he will weigh out ½ shekel of silver”; and mu lugal in-pa3, “he swore by the king”.
Uncertain: the plant; the line erin2 sar-sze3, “(as) workers for the garden”; and the conditional, which is implied rather than written.
Our confidence: medium-high. The contract formula is clear; one plant name and one line 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 3, 1975, hand copies of tablets in the Free Library of Philadelphia). Dates use the conventional middle chronology and are approximate.
For the full description of sources, method, uncertainties, dating conventions, limitations, and how to report corrections, see About the Translations and Methodology.
Further reading
- CDLI artifact page for P113879
- R. K. Englund, “Equivalency Values and the Command Economy of the Ur III Period in Mesopotamia” (2012)
- Wikipedia, “Ibbi-Sin”
- CDLI Wiki, Ibbi-Suen, including the year names
- Wikipedia, “Nippur”
- Wikipedia, “Third Dynasty of Ur”
- ePSD2, the electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary