Abstract
This project is in essence a study of numbers found in economic texts from Larsa , so it is important to examine the texts themselves and the mechanisms that define them. This chapter describes the texts, making an initial distinction between tabular and prosaic documents. Further distinction occurs between single transactions , lists and balanced accounts , as well as archival differences between personal archives, bureau archives and merchant archives . These texts are each parts of record-keeping apparatuses, so that single transactions would have been compiled into lists which would in turn be compiled into balanced accounts . Also, an individual may have acted in multiple capacities: one record might reflect practices employed to manage his own estate, another might conform to record-keeping practices within a bureau, while a further text would conform to practices common among merchants who procured silver on behalf of a palace or a temple authority. This chapter is supplemented by Appendix 1 where the economic texts themselves are presented.
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- 1.
Stol (1994), in his article concerning LB 1097 , deserves credit as the first Assyriologist I am aware of who recognizes the importance of a mathematical interpretation to examine economic texts. See Appendix 1 here for LB 1097 . The difference between Stol’s interpretation and that espoused here is simple time: Since his 1994 publication, much has come to light about mathematical practice as related to education and the economic texts thanks to works like Robson (1999), Friberg (2000) and Proust (2007).
- 2.
The use of tablets as fill, and the appearance of tablets as debris after their utility had expired, have a long tradition in ancient southern Mesopotamia. Discussing texts from the Uruk period of the fourth millennium, Englund (1998: 41) states ‘archival information which might have been derived from the excavated Uruk texts was in great part lost, due both to the recording method of the excavators, but also and fundamentally to the fact that the archaic texts from Uruk formed—seemingly without exception—part of the general debris of pottery shards, animal remains, etc., removed from administrative units of the central district Eanna and either deposited in trash holes or used as fill in constructions of walls and floors’. In so far as the Old Babylonian period is concerned, Charpin (1986: 481–82) noted that the so-called school texts found at No. 1, Broad Street were, in fact, fill used to construct walls. Finally, as noted in Chap. 1, only some of the texts from the city of Larsa itself that escaped pillaging were found in their original archival context. Of the remaining, some were picked up on the surface of the site or found in fill (Arnaud 1978: 165).
- 3.
Yet even with this information, it would be difficult to prove whether NBC 11509 had actually been used, or if its utility had simply expired at the end of the year so that a new text was written. This can only be shown by the discovery of a second text that refers to the same excavation with either similar data and a different month and date (suggesting a new survey), or one dated to year, month and day and which the data shows to have been a completed project.
- 4.
This distinction is made and discussed in Robson (2004a). For prosaic economic texts examined here, see Appendix 1.A.a. For tabular economic texts, see Appendix 1.A.b.
- 5.
Robson (2004: 128) sees the totals in column 5 as a verification of the quantity in column 1. However, as is typical with balanced accounts (see below), this would not be a verification but a comparison of capital and expenditures.
- 6.
The word ‘grain’ is used here as a general term to describe any cultivated cereal, although in Mesopotamia the Sumerian word ‘še’ as an object (and as opposed to, for instance, a metrological element, for which see Chap. 2) typically denotes barley (Hordeum vulgare). See Charles (1984) for a distinction of Mesopotamian cereal crops, and Powell (1984) for a discussion of Sumerian evidence for cereal crops.
- 7.
This is a deviation from the economy described by Van de Mieroop (1987) on the Isin craft archives .
- 8.
This suggests that a similar process had occurred at Larsa as described by Van de Mieroop (1992: 243–245) for the city of Ur —that the economy shifted to a silver economy .
- 9.
For the reading of [DU] as kux, see Krecher (1987) and Bauer (2004).
- 10.
Note that this synopsis is not fully accepted in Assyriological circles. For another hypothesis of textual relationships, see the discussion of Steinkeller (2003) below.
- 11.
Perhaps the use of ba-zi is similar to that described by Sallaberger (1999: 240) for the Ur III period , where it signifies the expenditure of finished products. As stated on (ibid.: 245), the person named as qualifying ba-zi, as well as mu-kux(DU) discussed below, was probably the institutional head or authority directing the activity described in the text.
- 12.
This individual probably acts similarly to his counterpart from the Ur III period , who, as described by Sallaberger (1999: 249–50), is employed when the place of origin of a commodity/goods is outside of the receiving institution. Veldhuis (2001: 94) states of this official in Ur III Girsu , ‘From the point of view of the central administration, he is the middle man, ultimately responsible for the arrival of the goods at the correct place’.
- 13.
This is similar to the Ur III period , where the term is employed towards the end of a document to signify the delivery of goods to an institution. Cf. Sallaberger (1999: 240) for this, where the term describes the delivery of raw materials and then an institution’s available credit.
- 14.
Sallaberger (1999: 214) notes the use of this term to describe the receipt of goods within the same institution, while Steinkeller (2003: 38) states that this term is used primarily by smaller institutions to describe the receipt of goods. According to Steinkeller (ibid.: 38), ‘Records of this type were prepared expressly for the expending or disbursing party, in whose possession they would remain either indefinitely or until they were transferred’.
- 15.
In contrast to Breckwoldt (1994: 82), where a distinction is suggested between the reign of Rīm-Sîn when balanced accounts were used, and the reign of Hammu-rābi , where sūtu texts were employed to administer the silver economy . Here it is suggested that with Hammu-rābi came a slightly different form of capital exploitation, the sūtu system, which added an additional layer of administrative complexity. Accounts still needed to be balanced, as the use of the phrase nikkassu epšu suggests.
- 16.
For this translation of si-i3-tum, see the electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (ePSD), 2006, http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd1/nepsd-frame.html. Accessed 19 July 2016. There it is related to the Akkadian word šittum, ‘remnant’. Halloran (2006: 230) defines this term as ‘balance owing carried forward from an earlier account, usually from the previous year (from Akkadian šiātum, ‘to leave behind,’ šittu, ‘remainder, deficit’)’.
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Middeke-Conlin, R. (2020). Text Types and Archival Practices in the Kingdom of Larsa. In: The Making of a Scribe. Why the Sciences of the Ancient World Matter, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35951-5_3
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