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A Sumerian Contract from Ellasar
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
In recent years a large number of economic tablets from Senkereh have appeared in the commerce of antiquity dealers. The Louvre in Paris and the Yale Babylonian Collection in America secured a great many. A small collection was sold to the Museum of the University of Wales in 1914, which contains a contract of sale written at Ellasar. The Rev. Chas. Overy, M.A., of Radley College, near Oxford, secured a perfect specimen of the Senkereh archives when he was in the service of the British Army in Mesopotamia. He has kindly shown me the tablet and permitted its publication in our Journal.
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- Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1921
References
page 577 note 2 Mostly unpublished. Two are published by Thureau-Dangin, , RA. 8, 82–85Google Scholar, and the same scholar communicated several date formulæ in RA. 15, 20 ff.
page 577 note 3 Miss E. M. Grice has published 253 tablets of the Ellasar collection in Records from Ur and Larsa, New Haven, 1919.Google Scholar
page 578 note 1 See my notes on the Aberystwith tablets in Babyloniaca, vii, 39–50.Google Scholar The contract concerns a sale of land, and will be found on p. 47 of the article referred to in this note.
page 578 note 2 Note that the names of the three sons of Kuzulum, mentioned on this tablet, Sin-magir, Sin-mubaliṭ, and Nigga-Nannar all contain a title of the moon-god.
page 580 note 1 But note the phrase in the Ellasar contract, Grice, ibid., 134, 14; euim ba-gar-ra é-a-mi Enlil-gamil ba-ni-ib-zi-zi, “If E. make claim for his house, it shall be dismissed.”
page 581 note 1 According to Thureau-Dangin, the twenty-fourth year. But see AJSL., 35, 225.Google Scholar
page 581 note 2 Var. Babyloniaca, vi, 45Google Scholar, ka-bar-ra = opening of the mouth, oracular command.
page 581 note 3 Var. ibid., ga-ba-ta-ge.
page 581 note 4 The sign is regularly 
in the variants, but the Overy tablet has 
The latter form is a corruption of 
, a variant gunn form of 
(ud) = REC. 92, and identified by the writer with 
(AJSL., 33, 48). The sign has the values sub-sab-sib, shepherd, and šub = banû, shine forth. Note that the N. Pr. Lugal-R-e, Chiera, List of Personal Names, 17, iv, 4; 24, 3; 25, i, 17 has variants 
(21, 5), 
20, ii 3. The form in 21, 5 is a double-gunu form of 
(ud), i.e., a gunu-šeššig form. This proves clearly enough the identifications defended in AJSL., 31, 282; 33, 48. But Chiera has found a variant Lugal-
-e, Lugal-sib-e, “The king is shepherd,” ibid., 276. Note that the sign is not LAGAR + GUNU but UD + GUNU or rather UD + GUNU + ŠEŠScaron;IG. See also Clay, Miscellaneous Inscriptions, 12, Rev. vii, 5. In Poebel, PBS. v, 108, 7, the sign is glossed [ … ] ṣi-em = pi-sa-nu-um, bucket, basket, and ( … ) = a-lu-u-um, vase, which indicates a confusion with the sign 
, REC. 429. Note d-NIN-PISAN, CT. 24, 48, 17 = NIN (bi-zi-em) PISAN, 25, 27, K. 2117, 8. The sign PISAN has, therefore, the value bizem, bisem, and the vocabulary cited above read (bi-ṣi-em) 
= pisānu, bucket, vase. Note also bi-iz =.natāku, sapāku, napāṣu, words for “pour out”, Scheil, Voc., 130–137. The sign in question was, therefore, confused with two disparate signs, sub, shepherd, and bizem, backet. For the original sign bizem, see Genouillac, Inventaire, MIO. 892; R. ii, 16, a (duk)-kam-
, i.e. a kam-bizem or kind of jar. This is probably the original sense of the sign and its use as sub, sib, shepherd, is secondary.
page 582 note 5 Var. Grice, , 149, šú.Google Scholar
page 582 note 1 The only complete text for this line is Grice, 149, which has apparently Ki-UNU-a-šú. The reading UD-UNU (i.e. Ellasar) is doubtful. See also Grice, 155 [Ki-]UNU-(ki)-ga, which points to the reading Unug-ga.
page 582 note 2 Var. Grice, , 149Google Scholar, á-kar; 150, a-kar.Google Scholar
page 582 note 3 Var. Grice, , 150, 58, i-im-ta-an-è-[a]Google Scholar; ibid., 149, be-in-ne. For en, in = ed, è, go up, see Sum. Grammar, 213.Google Scholar