Abstract

This article presents the edition of a cuneiform tablet held by the Multnomah County Central Library in Portland, Oregon. The text in question is a receipt for bitumen dating to the reign of Amar-Suen of the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112-2004 BCE).¹

Multnomah County Library 411.7 C9723

The cuneiform tablet in question became part of the library’s collection through a donation by prominent Portland lawyer and author C. E. S. Wood in 1916 (for Wood’s role in the creation of Multnomah County Library, see Barnes 2023). In an accompanying letter, Wood stated that he had purchased the tablet from Edgar J. Banks, former American consul in Baghdad and field director of the excavations at Adab, modern Bismāyā (for Banks’ role in the creation of many tablet collections in North America, see Englund 2004, 36–37). Wood’s letter unfortunately does not provide the date of his purchase of the tablet from Banks, but it is likely that the tablet left Iraq in the early years of the 20^th century.

The tablet records a disbursement of bitumen for the coating of agricultural implements and dates to the 5^th regnal year of king Amar-Suen. Both the administrator involved, Ur-E’e, and the tablet’s general characteristics suggest that it originated in Umma, modern Tall Jūka, a provenance consistent with the likely dating of its removal from Iraq.

Clay tablet (P550449)

height: 30 mm
width: 28 mm
thickness: 20 mm

Inscription

Commentary

• obv. 1) esir₂ e₂-a is a type of bitumen usually measured by volume, not weight (see Civil 1989, 40; Potts 1997, 100).
• obv. 2) Ur-E’e functioned as chief livestock administrator (šuš₃) in Umma and is attested between the years SH33-AS8 (Dahl 2007, 85). Ur-E’e also occurs in a number of other documents recording the administration of bitumen or asphalt, both as disburser and as recipient, including Nisaba 09 060 (P208648) which also records a disbursement of bitumen for the same agricultural implements from Ur-E’e in year SH 48.
• obv. 3) bu_x-bu_x is here interpreted as ‘winnower, winnowing fan’, the implement used in separating the grain from the chaff, following the discussion in Sallaberger 2013, 107–108. Note also Sallaberger’s observation that the amount of bitumen required to coat a bu_x-bu_x, about one litre, is significantly higher than the amount used to coat a sieve (ma-an-sim), which tallies well with the amount of three litres listed in the present text.
• obv. 4) The E’amara, the ‘House of Calves’, would have been under the remit of U-E’e in his role as chief livestock administrator.

Notes

¹ I am very grateful to Rachael Short, Special Collections Librarian at Multnomah County Library, for allowing me to publish this document and to Rune Rattenborg for bringing the tablet to my attention.

References

1. Barnes, Tim. 2023. “C.E.S. Wood (1852-1944).” Oregon Encyclopedia. Oregon Historical Society. May 2023.
2. Civil, Miguel. 1989. “Igi-Esir = Pan Ittî.” NABU, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 1989 (3): 40.
3. Dahl, Jacob L. 2007. The Ruling Family of Ur III Umma: A Prosopographical Analysis of an Elite Family in Southern Iraq 4000 Years Ago. Netherlands Institute for the Near East: Leiden.
4. Englund, Robert K. 2004. “Banks in Banning.” In Von Sumer Nach Ebla Und Zurück. Festschrift. Giovanni Pettinato Zum 27. September 1999 Gewidmet von Freunden, Kollegen Und Schülern, edited by Hartmut Waetzoldt, 35–44. Heidelberger Studien Zum Alten Orient, Band 9. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag.
5. Potts, Daniel T. 1997. Mesopotamian Civilization. The Material Foundations. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
6. Sallaberger, Walther. 2013. “Der Trinkhalm Für Bier. Ein Präsargonischer Textbeleg.” Revue d’Assyriologie et d’Archéologie Orientale 107: 105–10.

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	address = {Oxford; Berlin; Los Angeles},
	author = {Nett, Seraina},
	journal = {Cuneiform Digital Library Notes},
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	year = {2025},
	publisher = {Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative},
	title = {A {Sumerian} {Administrative} {Tablet} in {Multnomah} {County} {Library}},
	url = {https://cdli.earth/articles/cdln/2025-1},
	volume = {2025},
}

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