Sumerian Cuneiform Tablet, recording an Act of Social Welfare, 2100 BC - 2000 BC
Clay
6.7 x 5.1 x 1.8 cm
2 5/8 x 2 x 3/4 in
2 5/8 x 2 x 3/4 in
LSO.1025
Of all the tablets in the large corpus of extant Cuneiform texts, the most affecting are not those which deal with the great deeds of Kings and warriors, but rather...
Of all the tablets in the large corpus of extant Cuneiform texts, the most affecting are not those which deal with the great deeds of Kings and warriors, but rather those which give us a glimpse into the daily lives of the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians and Persians who wrote them. We laugh with knowing sympathy at the letter of Nanni, a customer of the merchant Ea-nāṣir, regarding the inferior copper delivered to him, and with issues relating to another delivery (British Museum 131236). We swoon at the little tablet addressed to Shu-Shin by an unnamed female speaker, which may be the earliest recorded love-poem (Museum of the Ancient Orient, Istanbul IL.2461). And we roll our eyes at the letter sent from a King Tushratta complaining that he has been short-changed by the Pharaoh Akhenaten, which goes over the Pharaoh’s head to complain to his mother (Amarna Letter EA 26). From these documents, we realise that the ancients were not that dissimilar to us. Their trials and tribulations, disputes and desires, were eerily familiar, and remarkably modern.
The Mesopotamian need to record almost everything in their society perhaps comes from the fact that they were the first to invent writing, at least in a form which is intelligible to modern man. Sumerian cuneiform began as a pictographic writing, which became simplified over time into the various semi-alphabetical letters known as Cuneiform. While the wedges of Cuneiform may seem bewilderingly dense to us, they actually overcame one of the problems of early writing: standardisation. Imagine, for example, that someone asked you to draw a duck. Your duck would doubtless look very different from mine or anyone else’s – especially if we were asked to draw that duck very small and very quickly. Early pictographic writing produced, therefore, even more variable calligraphic styles than modern alphabetic systems. While there was a greater tolerance for personal handwriting styles, the Mesopotamian simplification of symbols into Cuneiform symbols was a stroke of genius. Cuneiform was written by pressing a reed pen cut in a particular way into wet clay; the strokes were thus completely standardised, with only the angles permitting some degree of variance. While this stifled the calligraphic arts, it ensured that Cuneiform was not only readable to other Sumerians, but also became a useful scripta franca (to coin a phrase) for the whole Near East.
This extraordinary little tablet falls into the category of personal documents which touch the hearts of modern readers. The contents might at first seem unremarkable: an unknown scribe records that a man called Erishum has sent his wife, son, two daughters, an unspecified number of grandchildren, and twenty-four servants away from his home in the otherwise unknown town of Isur to the well-attested city of Diniktum and into the care of a man named Girini-isha. This is all being recorded for the benefit of an unnamed ‘Lord’, perhaps the reigning monarch of one or other city-state. So it would seem that Erishum was a rich man, who for some reason placed his household under the care of another man. We must speculate as to why such an act would happen. This could be a dramatic consequence of a debt, in which Erishum pays an outstanding sum owed to Girini-isha. But surely, one would downsize one’s residence, sell one’s cattle, or even sell oneself into slavery, before disposing of family. A more likely, and somewhat more tragic, explanation offers itself instead. Erishum probably became unable to care for his family – through old-age, sickness, or impoverishment, or death – and is informing the King or district governeor (or else someone is informing such a figure on his behalf) that he is abdicating familial responsibility in favour of a nominated friend or associate in a foreign city. This, then, is an early act of social welfare, in which those unable to take care of themselves were placed in another’s care. Sadly, we do not know what became of Mrs Erishum, or, indeed, of the kind-hearted Girini-isha who took them in.
Translation: Speak to my Lord: one wife of Erishym, one son of his, two daughters of his […] her children, four ox-herders, and 20 donkeys […] I have taken from Isur [or Nisur] to Diniktum, and put in the care of Girini-Isha. Let my Lord take note.
Translation by the late Prof Wilfred G. Lambert, FBA
Professor Emeritus of Assyriology, University of Birmingham
The Mesopotamian need to record almost everything in their society perhaps comes from the fact that they were the first to invent writing, at least in a form which is intelligible to modern man. Sumerian cuneiform began as a pictographic writing, which became simplified over time into the various semi-alphabetical letters known as Cuneiform. While the wedges of Cuneiform may seem bewilderingly dense to us, they actually overcame one of the problems of early writing: standardisation. Imagine, for example, that someone asked you to draw a duck. Your duck would doubtless look very different from mine or anyone else’s – especially if we were asked to draw that duck very small and very quickly. Early pictographic writing produced, therefore, even more variable calligraphic styles than modern alphabetic systems. While there was a greater tolerance for personal handwriting styles, the Mesopotamian simplification of symbols into Cuneiform symbols was a stroke of genius. Cuneiform was written by pressing a reed pen cut in a particular way into wet clay; the strokes were thus completely standardised, with only the angles permitting some degree of variance. While this stifled the calligraphic arts, it ensured that Cuneiform was not only readable to other Sumerians, but also became a useful scripta franca (to coin a phrase) for the whole Near East.
This extraordinary little tablet falls into the category of personal documents which touch the hearts of modern readers. The contents might at first seem unremarkable: an unknown scribe records that a man called Erishum has sent his wife, son, two daughters, an unspecified number of grandchildren, and twenty-four servants away from his home in the otherwise unknown town of Isur to the well-attested city of Diniktum and into the care of a man named Girini-isha. This is all being recorded for the benefit of an unnamed ‘Lord’, perhaps the reigning monarch of one or other city-state. So it would seem that Erishum was a rich man, who for some reason placed his household under the care of another man. We must speculate as to why such an act would happen. This could be a dramatic consequence of a debt, in which Erishum pays an outstanding sum owed to Girini-isha. But surely, one would downsize one’s residence, sell one’s cattle, or even sell oneself into slavery, before disposing of family. A more likely, and somewhat more tragic, explanation offers itself instead. Erishum probably became unable to care for his family – through old-age, sickness, or impoverishment, or death – and is informing the King or district governeor (or else someone is informing such a figure on his behalf) that he is abdicating familial responsibility in favour of a nominated friend or associate in a foreign city. This, then, is an early act of social welfare, in which those unable to take care of themselves were placed in another’s care. Sadly, we do not know what became of Mrs Erishum, or, indeed, of the kind-hearted Girini-isha who took them in.
Translation: Speak to my Lord: one wife of Erishym, one son of his, two daughters of his […] her children, four ox-herders, and 20 donkeys […] I have taken from Isur [or Nisur] to Diniktum, and put in the care of Girini-Isha. Let my Lord take note.
Translation by the late Prof Wilfred G. Lambert, FBA
Professor Emeritus of Assyriology, University of Birmingham