Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-mx8w7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-29T08:50:54.322Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Untouchable or Unrepeatable? The Upper End of the Old Babylonian Metrological Systems for Capacity and Area

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2014

Grégory Chambon  and
Eleanor Robson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article re-examines the cuneiform evidence for the upper end of the Old Babylonian metrological systems for capacity and area. We demonstrate that the reading 1(šar2) gal šu nu-tag “one large šar2 that the hand cannot touch” is not supported by that evidence, and show instead that the phrase's final sign is not tag but gi4 “return” or “repeat”. We then consider several likely interpretations of this reading, arguing that the size of the largest units in both systems is probably sixty times smaller than previously assumed, but nevertheless more than adequate for practical needs. Editions of two important metrological cuneiform texts are appended.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 73 , 2011 , pp. 127 - 147
Copyright
The British Institute for the Study of Iraq © 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Barton, G. A. 1909. The Haver ford Library Collection of Cuneiform Tablets, or Documents from the Temple Archives of Telloh, vol. 2. Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Co.; London: Headley Brothers.Google Scholar
Butz, K. 1979. “Ur in altbabylonischer Zeit als Wirtschaftsfaktor”, in State and Temple Economy in the Ancient Near East (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 5–6), ed. Lípinski, E., 257–409. Leuven: Departement Oriëntalistiek.Google Scholar
Chambon, G. 2011. L'Homme, la mesure et l'écriture en Mésopotamie (Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient 21). Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Civil, M. 1969. The Series lú = ša and Related Texts (Materials for the Sumerian Lexicon 12). Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute.Google Scholar
Englund, R. K. 1991. “Hard work—where will it get you? Labor management in Ur III Mesopotamia”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 50: 255–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foster, B. R. and Robson, E., 2004. “A new look at the Sargonic mathematical corpus”, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 94: 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friberg, J. 1982. A Survey of Publications on Sumero-Akkadian Mathematics, Metrology and Related Matters (1854–1982). Unpublished research report, Department of Mathematics, Chalmers University of Technology, University of Gothenburg.Google Scholar
Friberg, J. 1986. “Three remarkable texts from ancient Ebla”, Vicino Oriente 6: 3–25.Google Scholar
Friberg, J. 1987–1990. “Mathematik”, in Reallexikon der Assyriologie, vol. 7, ed. Edzard, D. O., 531–85. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Friberg, J. 2001. “Bricks and mud in metro-mathematical cuneiform texts”, in Changing Views on Ancient Near Eastern Mathematics (Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient 19), ed. Høyrup, J. and Damerow, P., 61–154. Berlin: Reimer.Google Scholar
Hilprecht, H. V. 1906. Mathematical, Metrological and Chronological Tablets from the Temple Library of Nippur (Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania. Series A: Cuneiform Texts 20/1). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Høyrup, J. 2000. “A note on Old Babylonian computational techniques”, Historia Mathematica 29: 1–6.Google Scholar
Karahashi, F. 2000. Sumerian Compound Verbs with Body-Part Terms. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Limet, H. 1973. Étude de documents de la période d'Agadé appartenant à l'Université de Liegé (Bibliotheque de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l'Université de Liège 206). Paris: Société d'Éditions “Les Belles Lettres”.Google Scholar
Maekawa, K. 1981. “The agricultural texts of Ur III Lagash of the British Museum (I)”, Acta Sumerologica 3: 37–61.Google Scholar
Maekawa, K. 1990. “Cultivation methods in the Ur III period”, Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 5: 115–45.Google Scholar
Mauer, G. 1987. “W 20038,1–59: ein Tontafelarchiv aus dem Palast des Sin-kašid in Uruk”, Baghdader Mitteilungen 18: 133–98.Google Scholar
Meissner, B. 1893. Beiträge zum altbabylonischen Privatrecht (Assyriologische Bibliothek 11). Leipzig: Hinrichs.Google Scholar
Mittermayer, C. 2006. Altbabylonische Zeichenliste der sumerisch-literarische Texte (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, Sonderband). Fribourg: Academic Press and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.Google Scholar
Nemet-Nejat, K. R. 1993. Cuneiform Mathematical Texts as a Reflection of Everyday Life in Mesopotamia (American Oriental Series 75). New Haven: American Oriental Society.Google Scholar
Netz, R. 2002. “Counter culture: towards a history of Greek numeracy”, History of Science 40: 321–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neugebauer, O. and Sachs, A. J. 1945. Mathematical Cuneiform Texts (American Oriental Series 29). New Haven: American Oriental Society.Google Scholar
Nissen, H. J., Damerow, P. and Englund, R. K. 1993. Archaic Bookkeeping: Early Writing and Techniques of Administration in the Ancient Near East. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Powell, M. A. 1972. “Sumerian area measures and the alleged decimal substratum”, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 62: 165–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, M. A. 1987–1990. “Masse und Gewichte”, in Reallexikon der Assyriologie, vol. 7, ed. Edzard, D. O., 457–517. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Proust, C. 2000. “La multiplication babylonienne: la part non écrite du calcul”, Revue d'histoire des mathématiques 6: 293–303.Google Scholar
Proust, C. 2007. Tablettes mathématiques de Nippur. I: Reconstitution du cursus scolaire. II: Édition des tablettes conservées à Istanbul (Varia Anatolica 18). Istanbul: IFEA-De Boccard.Google Scholar
Proust, C. 2008a (with Krebernik, M. and Oelsner, J.). Tablettes mathématiques de la collection Hilprecht (Texte und Materialen der Frau Professor Hilprecht Collection 8). Leipzig: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Proust, C. 2008b. “Les listes et tables métrologiques, entre mathématiques et lexicographie”, in Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Held at the University of Chicago, July 18–22, 2005 (SAOC 62), ed. Biggs, R. D., Myers, J. and Roth, M. T., 137–55. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Renger, J. 1995. “Zu den Besitzverhältnissen am Ackerland im altbabylonischen Uruk: Bemerkungen zu den Texten aus dem ‘Archiv’ W 20038,1–59”, Altorientalische Forschungen 22: 157–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robson, E. 1996. “Building with bricks and mortar: quantity surveying in the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods”, in Houses and Households in Ancient Mesopotamia (Comptes Rendus du 40e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, 1993), ed. Veenhof, K. R., 181–90. Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul.Google Scholar
Robson, E. 1999. Mesopotamian Mathematics, 2100–1600 BC: Technical Constants in Bureaucracy and Education (Oxford Editions of Cuneiform Texts 14). Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Robson, E. 2002. “More than metrology: mathematics education in an Old Babylonian scribal school”, in Under One Sky: Mathematics and Astronomy in the Ancient Near East (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 297), ed. Steele, J. M. and Imhausen, A., 325–65. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.Google Scholar
Robson, E. 2004. “Mathematical cuneiform tablets in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford”, SCIAMVS–Sources and Commentaries in Exact Sciences 5: 3–65.Google Scholar
Robson, E. 2008. Mathematics in Ancient Iraq: A Social History. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Veldhuis, N. 1997. Elementary Education at Nippur: The Lists of Trees and Wooden Objects. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Groningen. Available online at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~veldhuis/EEN/EEN.htmlGoogle Scholar
Walters, S. D. 1970. Water for Larsa: An Old Babylonian Archive Dealing with Irrigation (Yale Near Eastern Researches 4). New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Whiting, R. M. 1984. “More evidence for sexagesimal calculations in the third millennium B.C.”, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 74: 58–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar