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 flat on the obverse, but rises in the middle on the reverse. Each side has three columns of script, all written in a fine, large, clear scribal hand. The text is an account tablet, listing barley produced in a certain area of Sumer, based on the quantities threshed at the various threshing floors. It is dated to the third year of Shu-Sin, fourth king of the Third Dynasty of Ur, c. 2035 B.C. The system of measures used is one of capacity: the two measures being the gur and the sila, and the gur was 300 sila, the latter being about .85 of a litre. The ancient scribes had a system of figures for gur- and sila-measured things, which cannot be reproduced in our script, and they mostly wrote the sign for the gur at the end of the figures, though the sila came last. So we have converted their system into a simple one:

413.60 = 413 gur, 60 sil 413. = 413 gu .60 = 60 sil
Translation:
583.60 of barley: threshing floor, first tim 413.60: threshing floor, second tim 112.240: threshing floor, third tim 1109.60: threshing floor of the Ninmah fiel adjacent to Ibba-Sharru 213.240: threshing floor grain pile of Nin-Isin Total: 1323 at the threshing floor Mr Nissaba-andul, manage 990.: threshing floor, first tim 1671.: threshing floor second tim 2661: threshing floor of Nin-Isin 440.: threshing floor of E-sukkalmah, between the grain pile of Nin-Isina and Ea-ishia Total: 3101. (? or 3701?) at the threshing floor (gap)
…] threshing floor… […..
1122. [.(…)] threshing floor grain pile of Nin-[Isina]
Total: 291. at the threshing floor Mr Lu-Ningirsu, manage 800.: clerk, Mr Apillasha: document of Malah, the sergean (11 broken lines)
[Total:….] + 50.6 Mr Kallamu, manage 744.: threshing floor Ea-ishiak: Mr Arshi’ah, manage 909.60: king’s gift (to) the soldiers, citizens of Ur: cler Apillasha, document of Malah, the sergean 909.60: disbursement 996.: threshing floor, first tim 2044.: threshing floor, second tim 1193.: threshing floor, third tim 1042.: threshing floor, fourth tim 472.60: threshing floor fifth tim 4807.60: threshing floor of the field KUR.MU Total: 6256.12 Mr Akalla, manager 871.60: threshing floor grain pile of ASHGAN: barley o the ‘Ox Field’ of ….in U Mr Ilum-bani, manage 1224.180: threshing floor grain pile of Nin-Isina: barley of the ‘Ox Field’ of Ea- [..]
Mr Shu-Ea, manage 880.240: threshing floor grain pile of ASHGAN: barley of the ‘Ox Field’ of Nin-ega Mr Ur-Baba, manage 396.: threshing floor grain pile of Nin-Isin Mr Lugal-nilagare, manage Total:….’Man Field’ disbursement Total: 18704.240 at the threshing floor 24798.60: winnowed barley of the ‘Ox Field’
Mangers of: the KURMUSH fiel the Amhul fiel and the Ninmah fiel Via Mr Ili-bilanni and Ur-Shulpa’ Year after: the (boat) Ibex-of-the-Apsu was caulke
The tablet has been assembled from pieces, and there are some big gaps in the obverse, but little missing from the reverse. Normally these documents are precise and fully accurate, but here it is not always possible to check for lack of some figures. However, the first ‘Total’ is a correct adding of the preceding correct sub-total and the extra item. However the second total appears to be understated. Probably it is a simple scribal error, but too many figures are lost to be able to check the grand total at the very end. In any case the huge quantities of grain being produced are testimony to the effectiveness of this civilisation, which had to irrigate the land to get any crop at all.'