Scott Beadles

The tablet records an amount of a grain (lillan”-grain) for provisions for the funerary cult of the former “lords”, that is the rulers, the en-priests and priestesses. The grain was issued from the mill by an official named Arad and received by an official Ur-mes with the title ‘beer libator” This title was used specifically for an official who performed libations during the funerary banquet for the deceased rulers.

The English units of measure in the translation do not reflect actual Sumerian volumes but merely the sequence of units, large to small, of the Sumerian. The regnal years of kings were identified by assigning a name for a significant event of that year.

Palace Dedication Inscription of King Sin-kashid of Uruk

Old Bablylonian period (c. 1900-1700 BCE)

The text of the inscription is known from 174 duplicates (identified in scholarly literature as Sin-kashid RIM E4.4.1.2). Some are written on small clay cones, others on clay or stone tablets. They were intended for foundation deposits, and were immured in the walls of the royal palace in great numbers. There are also many others expanded by a few lines of royal epithets.

Uruk was one of the most ancient cites of Sumer. The Amnanum were a tribe of West Semitic Amorite-speaking nomads who had come into southern Mesopotamia several centuries earlier.