Tablets from the Irisagrig Archive

While each of the previously known archives from the Third Dynasty of Ur has provided distinct views of Sumerian society, those from Iri-Saĝrig present an extraordinary range of new sources, depicting a cosmopolitan Sumerian/Akkadian city unlike any other from this period. In this publication, Marcel Sigrist and Tohru Ozaki present more than two thousand newly identified tablets, mostly from Iri-Saĝrig. This unique and extensive corpus elucidates the importance that Iri-Saĝrig represented politically, militarily, and culturally in Sumer.

Although these tablets were not able to be cleaned, baked, or photographed, the authors&; transliterations are based on the original tablets, often after repeated collations. Moreover, access to so many well-preserved tablets made it possible to improve upon the readings and interpretations offered in previous publications. Volume 1 contains a catalog and classification of the texts by provenance, a list of month names and year formulas, another of inscriptions, a chronological listing of the texts, and extensive indexes of personal names, deities, toponyms, and selected words and phrases. Volume 2 presents the texts in transliteration with substantial commentary.

This two-volume publication preserves and makes available to the scholarly community a significant segment of Iraq&;s cultural legacy that otherwise might have been ignored or even lost. It will augment and enhance our understanding of the unique civilization of Mesopotamia in the late third millennium BCE.