RICERCA ITALIANA     

Catalogue, publication, and analysis of the Neo-Sumerian administrative tablets from Girsu and Umma, belonging to the collections of the British Museum.

Università degli Studi di Messina

Abstract

The British Museum, represented by Dr C.B.F. Walker, has come to a formal agreement with the Universities of Messina (Prof. F. Pomponio) and Rome “La Sapienza” (Dr. F. D’Agostino), co-opting the C.S.I.C. of Madrid (Dr M. Molina), for the cataloguing, publishing and studying of the unpublished Neo-Sumerian administrative tablets of Umma and Girsu stored in the British Museum. The number of these tablets, according to the Trustees of the British Museum, is nearly of 4.000 for Umma and almost 20.000 for Girsu. We are confident that through this vast amount of documents it will possible to improve and, under certain aspects, to modify the present state of the knowledge of the administration, management and terminology of the power system, the economy and the historical framework, both provincial and central, of the Ur III Dinasty.

An introductory stage of the work of all the research units is the cataloguing of the documents, according to period, administrative area, typology; the texts will be eventually edited on the basis of this classification. The catalogue will present the material according to two main orders of data: firstly, the philological information necessary to assess the administrative and economic contents; secondly, the more strictly archaeological information.

Prof. Pomponio’s reasearch unit (Messina) will be primarily concerned with cataloguing and analyzing the unpublished tablets of Umma. Considering the >>>

Principal Investigator

Francesco Vincenzo POMPONIO Università degli Studi di MESSINA

Research Objectives

The aim of the project is threefold:
1) the catalogue of all the unpublished Neo-Sumerian tablets from Girsu and Umma belonging to the collections of the British Museum;
2) the edition of a part of these tablets grouped according to their categories with an analysis of the category in object;
3) the realization of the web site of the project, which will offer information on the project, will make available the preliminary data of the catalogue and edition of the texts, and will present the photos of a large number of tablets.

First Results

The predicted result for the first phase is the cataloguing of the largest possible number of the 24.000 Neo-Sumerian still unpublished tablets from Girsu and Umma kept in the British Museum, according to the above-mentioned criteria.For the research unit of Messina the predicted result is the edition of a good number of the Umma tablets, grouped according to their category, together with the study of the involved categories.
For the research unit of Neaples the predicted result is the edition of all the unpublished messenger texts of Umma and Girsu kept in the British Museum according to a new subdivision in groups.
For the research unit of Rome the predicted result is the edition of a few most significant tablets from Girsu.

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

Umma and Girsu, distant from each other only thirty kilometres, represent two of the many small states in the varied political panorama of Southern Mesopotamia in the Early Dynastic period. Their historical vicissitudes are indissolubly bounded for many generations: at first, because they seem to have belonged to the so-called Šuruppak Hexapolis; successively, on account of the boundary conflict which opposed them and drained their resources for more than a century (this is the first of the human wars whose events are historically known). During the following Sargonic period, the two small states were absorbed by the empire of Sargon and, after an initial phase in which the ruler of Lagaš perhaps collaborated with the occupants, they both allied with the other Sumerian cities in an obstinate, however unsuccessful, struggle for independence. The following occupation by the highland Gutians was probably suffered more profoundly by Umma than by Girsu.
Eventually, even though the occupation of Umma had occurred earlier, both states became provinces of the empire of Ur III, and two of the most important ones of this huge state. Their secession, occurred almost in the same year for reasons yet to be clarified (though we can feasibly argue the destruction for both cities and a decisive one for Umma), and must have represented a heavy stroke for the economy of Ur, a severe loss, in particular, for the food resources of the empire, bringing about the same >>>