BM 063926: disbursement of grain, from Sippar

BM 063926: disbursement of grain, reign of Nabonidus (Neo-Babyonian period, c.540 BC). Photograph by Karen Radner; reproduced with permission of the British Museum. View large image.

This tablet forms part of the extensive administrative archives of the Ebabbar (Sumerian for "Bright House"), the temple of the sungod Šamaš PGP  at Sippar PGP  in northern Babylonia, near modern Baghdad. It is one of a great number of similar texts documenting the temple's expenditures. In this case, these concern food provisions for some workmen dispatched on the temple's behalf to Itu'u PGP  (modern Hit), a city situated on the Euphrates on the modern Syrian-Iraqi border and famous for its bitumen TT  wells. It is quite possible that the workers were meant to procure this material which was used to waterproof buildings and boats. The transportation costs and the fodder for the donkeys carrying the grain were included in the total expenses.

View the record for this tablet on the British Museum's research database [http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database.aspx].

A transliteration and translation of this text can be found in Bongenaar, The Neo-Babylonian Ebabbar (1997), pp. 38-39.

Content last modified on 10 Jan 2017.

Karen Radner

Karen Radner, 'BM 063926: disbursement of grain, from Sippar', Knowledge and Power, Higher Education Academy, 2017 [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/knpp/cuneiformrevealed/tabletgallery/bm063926/]