Montserrat Museum: 11 (2023-09-12)

Created by: Wagensonner, Klaus

Neo-Babylonian text with land register from Uruk; Montserrat Museum, MM 220b.

Among the neo-Babylonian texts and fragments kept in the Museum of the Abbey of Montserrat is this well-preserved fragment of a text dealing with land registers (edition: C. Wunsch, AuOr 15, 141ff.). Although not fully preserved, the tablet can be dated to the 13th year of the neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus (543 BC). The text represents an inventory of various fields and gardens in and around the city of Uruk. For neo-Babylonian Uruk, we have the large institutional archive of the Eanna-temple, to which currently about 9,000 texts can be assigned. The plots mentioned in this text are related to the temple, and in at least two cases private land was transferred to the temple estates. Another aspect of this text is noteworthy. It provides information about the location and size of temple estates in that area and furthermore allows insights into the administrative procedures related to these lands. The areas mentioned in this text do not seem be adjacent to each other. One plot had already been registered in a previous inventory. It adds the remark akî lē'i labīri šaṭir, “as is written on the old tablet.” CDLI entry: P432815

credit: Wagensonner, Klaus & Lafont, Bertrand