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 text is an administrative document from the period of the Third Dynasty of Ur, dated to the 5th year of Shu-Sin, fourth king of the dynasty, c. 2033 B.C. It is a list of various types of grain received by the government store-keeper. The grain was measured by bulk, the gur being the larger measure, the sila the smaller measure. Here the system is made clear by a dot:
1. = 1 gu
.1 = 1 sil
1.1 = 1 gur, 1 sil
The gur was about 250 litres, the sila was one 300th part of a gur, about .85 of a litre. The ancient scribes used different sets of figures for the various units, and wrote in words usually “gur” even when only sila were involved, though “sila” is often written when both measures are in use, or when only sila were involved. The common grain was barley, and in this document when only figures and no product is named, barely is meant. The other grains were emmer (a kind of wheat) and wheat (a variety of our wheat). Pulses are also named, but their translations are less sure: we have no direct evidence. What is striking is the huge amounts of grain received in this particular granary. Sumer had a reputation in the ancient Near East for its grain production, due to irrigation and intensive cultivation.
Translation:

9238.20: (Mr) Shulgira. 4893.290 of emmer. 84.210 of wheat. 79. of malted grain. 27.75 of returned (?) barley. 32.8 of peas. 44.204 of lentils. 5.275 of cress seed. Deposited store 6370.200. 44. 240 of emmer. .90 of wheat. 3. of assorted pulses. On the street (i.e. not yet received). Ilum-bani, store manager has received. Year after: Shu-Sin, king of Ur, built the west wall, that which keeps the Tidnum at bay.

Barley was more grown than wheat because the saline soil of Sumer was more suited to barley than wheat.’