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. The following is
a transcription of his analysis of this tablet:
‘Clay tablet, 89 x 52 mm., with 26 lines of
Sumerian cuneiform on obverse and
reverse, written in a large, fine scribal hand,
and excellently preserved. 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 an account of the expenditure of barley.
A gur was a measure of capacity, used for
barley, and about 250 litres. Barley was the
regular crop on the irrigated land of Sumer,
and served in most cases for our money.
Translation
190 gur of barley: a consignment of barley
from it:
Seed grain for 60 iku f land: 6 gur
fodder for cattle: 6 gur
wages for hired men: 12 gur
1 ox for sale: 6 gur
80 sheep for sale: 40 gur expenditures for 1
year
10 gur for beer and bread: the gods’
banquet
1 gur: payment to the priest
72 gur: barley rations for temple slaves
2 talents of wool in 12 mina bundles: sale
value 10 gur wool rations for temple slaves
12 gur barley rations for Mashtum, house-
born slave
Total: 174 gur
A disbursement: 44 gur surplus
Accounts for priestly goods, via Ili-bitim
Year: Shu-Sin, king of Ur, built a magnificent
barge for Enil and Ninlil
***
The arithmetic is not quite accurate. The
total adds up to 175, not 174 as stated.
The priest’s 1 gur was apparently forgotten.
And 175 subtracted from 190 yields 15, not
44! Since only scribes could read and write,
perhaps they relied on professional loyalty to
avoid exposure of such errors. But the
details of kinds of uses for barley do look
entirely correct for Sumerian life at this
time.’
