| Sumerian cuneiform is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. First appearing in the 4th millennium BC in what is now Iraq, it was dubbed cuneiform (‘wedge-shaped’) because of the distinctive wedge form of the letters, created by pressing a reed stylus into wet clay. Early Sumerian writings were essentially pictograms, which became simplified in the early and mid 3rd millennium BC to a series of strokes, along with a commensurate reduction in the number of discrete signs used (from c.1500 to 600). The script system had a very long life and was used by the Sumerians as well as numerous later groups – notably the Assyrians, Elamites, Akkadians and Hittites – for around three thousand years. Certain signs and phonetic standards live on in modern languages of the Middle and Far East, but the writing system is essentially extinct. It was therefore cause for great excitement when the ‘code’ of ancient cuneiform was cracked by a group of English, French and German Assyriologists and philologists in the mid 19th century AD. This opened up a vital source of information about these ancient groups that could not have been obtained in any other way.Cuneiform was used on monuments dedicated to heroic – and usually royal – individuals, but perhaps its most important function was that of record keeping. The palace-based society at Ur and other large urban centres was accompanied by a remarkably complex and multifaceted bureaucracy, which was run by professional administrators and a priestly class, all of whom were answerable to central court control. Most of what we know about the way the culture was run and administered comes from cuneiform tablets, which record the everyday running of the temple and palace complexes in minute detail, as in the present case. The Barakat Gallery has secured the services of Professor Lambert (University of Birmingham), a renowned expert in the decipherment and translation of cuneiform, to examine and process the information on these tablets. His scanned analysis is presented here. There is a clear impression of a seated goddess raising one hand on the obverse of this tablet.
Professor Lambert’s translation is provided below:
Clay tablet, 65×51 mm., with 15 lines of Sumerian cuneiform on obverse and reverse: an administrative document from the period of the Third Dynasty of Ur, dated to the 8th year of Shu-Sin, fourth king of the dynasty, c. 2030 B.C. It is not in pristine condition: the obverse lacks much of the lower part of the writing, and the reverse is also chipped and rubbed. The scribe had rolled his cylinder seal over the surface, and on the obverse there is a clear impression of a seated goddess raising one hand. The beginning of the obverse can be read, and most of the reverse:
Translation
1840 slave girls
1200 for 1 day
50 male serfs
. . . . .
Via Mr Ilum-asum
Month: Ezen.asig
Year: Shu-Sin, king of Ur, constructed the magnificent barge for (the gods) Enlil and Ninlil
This comes from the administration of a large temple estate, and the number of workers gives some idea of the scale of the operations. The slave girl and the serfs were not chattel slaves, but were tied to their jobs. Enlil and Ninlil were the chief gods of Sumer, patrons of the religious town Nippur. Travel in Sumer was normally by canal for any distance, so all gods had their own ceremonial barges. – (AM.0066) |
