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:

‘The tablet is written in a clear scribal hand. It is an administrative document from the period of the Third Dynasty of Ur, dated to the 6th year of Shu-Sin, fourth king of the dynasty, c. 2032 B.C. It is a list of workers on some royal or temple estate who are classified in various ways. The scribe has introduced two with an archaic numeral “l”, but two others with the then modern sign for “l”. We have used “l*” for the archaic numeral and “l” for the then normal numeral “l”.

Translation:

1* Qurudsa, absent, [left] off the payroll, son of Adad-nuri the prostitute. 1* Mat-ili, son of Puzur-me’a; soldier Puzur-ili, herdsman absent: 1 Ipqusha, mate of Adallal, groom, commoner. From Pu-Kakka, foreman and officer Apillanum, men of Uru-sariq. 1 Su-ili, son of a prostitute, mate of Warad-Epum, herdsman, commoner. From Ala, foreman and officer (sick), men of Anzagar, left off the pay-roll. At the order of Babanum […. (gap)…[Year: Shu]-Sin, king of [Ur], erected a magnificent stele for Enlil and Ninlil.

This document is an important one for social history, dealing with the employment of the lower classes of Sumerian society. Sons of prostitutes were one such class: apparently fatherless by law, identified by their mothers’ names. The status of ‘commoners’ is less certain. Later they were servants of the crown, who, like soldiers in many societies, had limited legal rights. Being left off the pay-roll does not mean they were not paid for work done, but that they were temporaries: they could be dismissed at will, unlike those on the regular pay-roll, who were guaranteed of a job for the next year.’