Clay tablet, 93 by 52 mm, with 22 lines of
Sumerian Cuneiform.
This is an administrative document dated to the
2nd year of king Ibbi-Sin, last king of the third
Dynasty of Ur, c. 2027 BC. It concerns aromatics:
substances with nice smell in their various uses
(incenses or perfume). The tablet is beautifully
written in a large clear hand and is in a
remarkable state of preservation. There are
problems in translating: while some of the
substances are well know, others are only known
as words, not their meanings, and some appear
to occur only here. They are all given with their
weights or capacity measures, proving that even
when not prefixed with the sign for “aromatic”
they are not (sic) e.g. the timber, as the first line
“cedar” might mean in other contexts. This is a
rare type of tablet, and the background is
extremely interesting, as will be explained later.
Translation
3 talents, 52 1/3 minas of cedar
10 minas of cypress
5 minas of juniper
46 minas 10 shekels of myrtle
53 1/3 minas of…
1 talent 39 1/3 minas of spurge
50 minas of…
10 minas of…
1 talent 59 1/2 minas of sweet reed
262 silla of…
43 1/3 sila of “juniper grains”
1 gur 120 sila of …
190 sila of…
235 sila of…
61 sila of “juniper fronds”
88 talents, 25 minas of gypsum
Bakmum, the scribe, received from Turam-ili,
supervisor of the merchant bankers
Year: the high priestess of Innana of Uruk was
chosen by divination.
The merchant bankers were individuals who
financed trade, especially foreign trade. Most of
the aromatics Most of the aromatics dealt with
here were necessarily imports into Sumer, and
the large quantities here in one document imply
government purchase of other form of
acquisition from these merchant bankers. It is
always a question how far these people were
private bankers, how far they were state
controlled, so perhaps these substances were a
kind of government tax imposed on the bankers.
A mina was about 500 grams, a talent 60 minas,
a shekel 1/60 of a mina. A sila was about .85 of
a litre, and a gur was of (sic) 300 sila.
- (LSO.21)
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