Offprint From:

From the 21st Century B.C.

to the 21st Century A.D.
Proceedings of the International Conference
on Sumerian Studies Held in Madrid
22–24 July 2010

edited by
STEVEN GARFINKLE and MANUEL MOLINA

Winona Lake, Indiana

EISENBRAUNS
2013
 © 2013 by Eisenbrauns Inc.
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

www.eisenbrauns.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

International Conference on Neo-Sumerian Studies (2010 : Madrid, Spain)

From the 21st century B.C. to the 21st century A.D. : proceedings of the
International Conference on Neo-Sumerian Studies held in Madrid 22–24 July
2010 / edited by Steven J. Garinkle and Manuel Molina.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 978-1-57506-296-9 (hardback : alkaline paper)
1. Ur (Extinct city)—Civilization—Congresses. 2. Sumerian language—
Texts—Congresses. 3. Babylonia—History—Congresses. 4. Iraq—History—
To 634—Congresses. 5. Iraq—Antiquities—Congresses. I. Garinkle,
Steven J. II. Molina, Manuel. III. Title.
DS70.5.U7I56 2010
935′.501—dc23
2013040752

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American Na-
tional Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materi-
als, ANSI Z39.48–1984. ♾ ™
 Contents

Dedication ................................................................................................................... v
Abbreviations ............................................................................................................ ix
Foreword ................................................................................................................ xxiii

Language and Sources

Ur III as a Linguistic Watershed .............................................................................. 3
MIGUEL CIVIL
Sumerian Adjectival Passives Using the *im- Prefix: The Old Babylonian
Evidence and Some Possible Third Millennium Precursors ............................ 19
J. CALE JOHNSON
Hypotactic and Paratactic Complementation in Sumerian ditilla Texts ............. 49
FUMI KARAHASHI
On the Location of Irisaĝrig .................................................................................... 59
MANUEL MOLINA
The Archive of Iri-Saĝrig / Āl-Šarrākī .................................................................... 89
DAVID I. OWEN

Administration and Ideology

Some Considerations on the Management of an Administrative
Structure in Ur III Mesopotamia: The Case of m a r - s a ............................... 105
SERGIO ALIVERNINI
The Tenure of Provincial Governors: Some Observations ................................... 115
LANCE ALLRED
Symbols and Bureaucratic Performances in the Ur III Administrative
Sphere: An Interpretation Through Data Mining .......................................... 125
ALESSANDRO DI LUDOVICO
The Third Dynasty of Ur and the Limits of State Power
in Early Mesopotamia ...................................................................................... 153
STEVEN GARFINKLE
Networks of Authority and Power in Ur III Times .............................................. 169
PIOTR MICHALOWSKI
Prince Etel-pū-Dagān, Son of Šulgi ...................................................................... 207
PALMIRO NOTIZIA
The Ur III Administration: Workers, Messengers, and Sons .............................. 221
FRANCO POMPONIO

vii
viii Contents

Šulgi Meets Stalin: Comparative Propaganda as a Tool of Mining

the Šulgi Hymns for Historical Data .............................................................. 233
LUDĚK VACÍN

Economy and Society

The Control of Copper and Bronze Objects in Umma
During the Ur III Period ................................................................................. 251
FRANCO D’AGOSTINO AND FRANCESCA GORELLO
Le Système Après-Récolte dans l’Hydro-Agriculture
Mésopotamienne à la Fin du IIIe Millénaire avant notre Ère ....................... 267
JEAN-PIERRE GRÉGOIRE
The Barbers of Iri-Saĝrig ....................................................................................... 301
ALEXANDRA KLEINERMAN
Absence from Work in Ur III Umma: Reasons and Terminology ........................ 313
NATALIA KOSLOVA
The Manufacture of a Statue of Nanaja: Mesopotamian Jewellery-Making
Techniques at the End of the Third Millennium B.C. ................................... 333
PAOLA PAOLETTI
Corvée Labor in Ur III Times ................................................................................ 347
PIOTR STEINKELLER
Ikalla, Scribe of (Wool) Textiles and Linen .......................................................... 425
LORENZO VERDERAME AND GABRIELLA SPADA
The Regular Offerings of Lambs and Kids for Deities and the é - u z - g a
During the Reign of Šulgi: A Study of the m u - TÚM and z i - g a / b a - z i
Texts from the Animal Center ........................................................................ 445
WU YUHONG AND LI XUEYAN

INDICES
Personal Names ............................................................................................... 459
Divine Names ................................................................................................... 463
Toponyms ......................................................................................................... 464
Sumerian Words and Phrases ......................................................................... 467
Texts Quoted .................................................................................................... 470
ED IIIa-b Texts ............................................................................................ 470
Old Akkadian Texts ..................................................................................... 470
Lagaš II and Ur III Texts ............................................................................ 470
Old Babylonian Texts .................................................................................. 489
Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts ......................................................... 490
Law Collections ............................................................................................ 490
Literary Texts .............................................................................................. 490
Incantations and Medical Texts .................................................................. 491
Lexical Texts ................................................................................................ 492
Grammatical Texts ...................................................................................... 492

PROGRAM OF THE CONFERENCE .............................................................................. 493

 Offprint from:
From the 21st Century B.C. to the 21st Century A.D.: Proceedings of the
International Conference on Sumerian Studies Held in Madrid 22-24 July 2010
Steven Garfinkle and Manuel Molina, eds.
© Copyright 2013 Eisenbrauns. All rights reserved.

The Third Dynasty of Ur and the Limits

of State Power in Early Mesopotamia

Steven Garfinkle
WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

1. Introduction

The tens of thousands of clay tablets that survive from the vast administrative
archives of the Third Dynasty of Ur have made the study of this era central to ex-
aminations of the society and economy of early Mesopotamia. Increasingly, schol-
ars have focused on the Ur III period not only because of its extensive documentary
record, but also because that record bears witness to one of the earliest efforts at
state formation in the ancient world. The kings of Ur ruled over a territorial state
that extended from the Persian Gulf up through most of southern Mesopotamia.
These kings also extended their influence over neighboring regions to the east. The
scribes of the late third millennium BC recorded these endeavors in great detail,
and we imagine that the new kingdom created a central administration to facili-
tate this record keeping. The volume of the archives created by these administra-
tors continues to astound modern observers. We customarily see these archives as
a result of the state’s growing authority, and yet the texts often highlight the
boundaries placed on the expansion of that authority.
For the past few years I have been working on the relationship between mer-
chants, state formation, and military activity in the Ur III period. In this article I
offer some provisional statements about the limits of state power as seen primarily
in the economic and administrative records. Much of this contribution can be
summarized in the following statements: the state building activities of the Ur III
kings are not best attested in our largest archives, which document the institu-
tional economies of large provinces like Umma and Girsu-Lagaš; state building
activities were centered in southern Mesopotamia and relied on the patronage of
the royal household and the charisma of the kings themselves and therefore these
activities are most visible in places like Puzriš-Dagān, Iri-Saĝrig and Garšana;1
–––––––––––––
1. These sites show the efforts of the kings of Ur to appropriate space within southern Mesopota-
mia for their own activities. Puzriš-Dagān was established near Nippur to aid in the central collection
of livestock and other goods, and for the distribution of booty from military campaigns. Iri-Saĝrig was
an older city that was likely appropriated by the crown as a staging ground for its military adventures
in the east (on this site, see Owen 2013a, 2013b, and 2013c in this volume). Garšana was a large royal
estate created within the province of Umma for a royal princess and her husband, a general (on this
estate, see Owen 2011; Heimpel 2009). Steinkeller forthcoming discusses the visibility of state building
activities in the records of labor assigned to large construction projects, and this highlights the exten-
sion of the new statewide identity beyond the households on which I am focusing in this article.

153
154 STEVEN GARFINKLE

ultimately, the one statewide institution successfully created by the kings of Ur

was the army; and finally, as a result of that fact, the state building activities of
the Ur III kings were inherently unstable. Moreover, the success of the state was
achieved through cooperation with local elites whose longstanding authority
within their communities was co-opted by the crown.
The sheer volume of extant texts from this era has convinced us not only that
this was a highly organized state, but also that the central power of the state was
absolute.2 This view of the Third Dynasty of Ur greatly overestimates the nature of
state control and its permanence. A first step towards understanding the limits of
state power is to recognize the character of the surviving archives and their limita-
tions. As is clearly seen in the data prepared by Manuel Molina (Fig. 1), what we
have is a documentary record that spans approximately two generations. This pe-
riod also coincided with the years during which the military power of the dynasty
and its ability to extract tribute were at their height.

3500

3000

2500

2000

1500

593 (344)
426 (346)

393 (10)

369 (36)

437 (1)
1000

380 (9)
486
170 (2)

467

394
300
59 (8)

37 (7)
25 (7)

202
500
33

27
17
15

14

13

10
9

9
4

3
4

3
6

5
1

2
1

2
1

1
1

0
UN02

UN04

UN05

UN06

UN09

UN10

UN12

UN14

UN15
UN16

UN17

SH01

SH02

SH03

SH04

SH05

SH06

SH07

SH08

SH09

SH10

SH11

SH12

SH16

SH17

SH18

SH19

SH21
SH22

SH23

SH24

SH25

SH26

SH27

SH28

SH29

SH30

SH31
SH32

SH33

SH34

SH35

SH36

SH37

SH38

SH39

SH40
2827 (18)

2871 (8)

3500
2567 (197)

2661 (11)
2533 (17)

2434 (5)

2372 (5)

3000
2029 (265)
2159 (2)

1949 (349)

2052 (14)
1975 (37)
1951 (30)
2031 (5)
1765 (382)

1764 (206)
1783 (16)

1750 (35)

2500
1706 5)

1508 (3)
1280 (264)

1393 (1)

1320 (1)

2000
1052 (316)

1176 (9)

1384

878 (403)

1500
719 (17)
499 (3)

1000
243 (19)

311 (1)

311 (3)

195(2)

448
274

500
75

31
10

10
8
3

0
IS01

IS02

IS03

IS04

IS05

IS06

IS07

IS08

IS09

IS11

IS12

IS13

IS14

IS15
IS16
IS17
IS18
IS19
IS20
IS21
IS22
IS23
AS01

AS02

AS03

AS04

AS05

AS06

AS07

AS08

AS09
SS01

SS02

SS03

SS04

SS05

SS06

SS07
SS08

SS09
SH41

SH42

SH43

SH44

SH45

SH46

SH47

SH48

Fig. 1. An overview of the chronological distribution of extant Ur III texts.3

–––––––––––––
2. This image of the Ur III state continues to dominate more general treatments of Mesopotamia
specifically and of world history more broadly, but it is increasingly being questioned by specialists, see
Yoffee 2005, and 2013; Michalowski 2004, and 2013b in this volume. This view results not only from the
appearance of power demonstrated by the tens of thousands of surviving administrative documents, but
also, as Michalowski notes, from the representations, or better self-representations, of power in the
surviving royal inscriptions and hymns. Yoffee (2005: 147) summed this up as follows, “The quantity
and quality of these sources from the royal house of Ur motivate scholarship today in roughly inverse
proportion to the stability and normative character of the Ur III state.”
3. The chart is adapted from Molina 2008: 47.
 The Third Dynasty of Ur and the Limits of State Power 155

The texts are certainly evidence for the authority of the royal household and its
ability to appropriate resources for the crown and its clients, at least for a period of
roughly fifty years. The officials charged with tracking these resources did so
through the production of texts. As I have discussed elsewhere, the literate ad-
ministrators could simultaneously exert control over material as well as people
from various places and at various times on behalf of the crown (Garfinkle in
press-b). Different parts of the kingdom were brought together on tablets for the
benefit of the royal elite. And yet, our largest archives document the continued
operation of local means of control within the provinces of the core of the kingdom.
I will discuss this point below with reference to merchants and to the army, but let
me pause to highlight a critical point regarding the provenance of the texts from
the Third Dynasty of Ur. Scholars of the Ur III period regularly comment on the
fact that the texts for which we have a geographic provenance come exclusively
from only a few sites, and likely from only a few contexts within those sites. Figure
2 below shows just how limited our view of the kingdom really is. Nearly seven out
of every ten tablets with a provenance comes from the archives of the provincial
institutions in Umma or Girsu-Lagaš.

Provenance Number of Extant Texts4

Umma 28,557
Girsu-Lagaš 26,671
Puzriš-Dagān 14,630
Ur 4,272
Nippur 3,545
Garšana 1,496
Iri-Saĝrig5 1,200

Figure 2. The largest corpora of Ur III texts by provenance.6

These records, chiefly from two of the more prosperous provinces, attest to the
ability of the state to extract wealth from the old urban centers and their hinter-
lands, but they very rarely speak directly to the state establishments that super-
vised this activity. The institutions of the newly forming territorial state can best
be seen at the sites of state directed activity, such as Puzriš-Dagān and Iri-Saĝrig;
and in the archives of the wealthy estates created by court functionaries, such as
Garšana. The agents of state power were those individuals, like soldiers and mer-
chants, who operated throughout southern Mesopotamia and whose activities were
not confined to the borders of one of the provinces. The smaller archives from the
royal cities and estates attest to the development of new groups within the state
whose fortunes were tied directly to the royal household. This relatively small
–––––––––––––
4. With the exception of Iri-Saĝrig, these numbers are gleaned from the current records of the
Database of Neo-Sumerian Texts (BDTNS): http://bdtns.filol.csic.es.
5. This figure is courtesy of Owen 2013c in this volume.
6. A similar table in Molina 2008: 52 includes some of the smaller archives not shown here. Mo-
lina also shows the percentage of extant texts represented by each corpus. The figures above are up-
dated according to the current database in the BDTNS; however, the percentages as calculated by
Molina have remained relatively constant. The texts from Umma and Girsu-Lagaš continue to consti-
tute almost 70% of the Ur III texts for which we can establish a provenance.
156 STEVEN GARFINKLE

number of functionaries owed their positions of privilege to the crown. This meant
that they shared in the wealth created by the state’s successes, but also that they
had to constantly pay tribute to the kings. Many of these functionaries were al-
ready individuals of substance in their local communities, but their connections to
the royal family gave their activities a wider orbit and scale.7 The texts at Puzriš-
Dagān in particular arose as a consequence of the need to monitor this flow of trib-
ute to the kings from the state’s new clients and the traditional urban elites within
southern Mesopotamia, along with the state’s new clients from the foreign lands
adjacent to Mesopotamia. This new statewide community was inherently fragile.

2. The Royal Household and Its Clients

The clients of the royal household were drawn from several sources. The kings
relied first and foremost on the traditional local elites in the cities at the heartland
of their kingdom. This is well documented in places like Nippur and Girsu-Lagaš
where the crown leveraged the existing social networks and left prominent local
families in charge of the temple and city hierarchies. Michalowski (2013b in this
volume) notes that important kin groups in Girsu-Lagaš related to the last inde-
pendent rulers of that city continued to be celebrated under the Ur III kings. In-
deed, the prologue to the Laws of Ur-Namma claimed that that king made Nam-
hani the governor (Roth 1997: 15; Frayne 1997: 47). This was the same Namhani
who was likely related to the famous Gudea. Second, the kings of Ur forged alli-
ances with elite families in peripheral areas to the north (for example, Mari) and to
the east (for example, Simanum).8 These “foreign” elites were frequent visitors to
southern Mesopotamia and regular contributors of resources to the court of the Ur
III kings (see Sharlach 2005). Finally, the crown actively created new networks of
elites whose activities crossed older political boundaries and who helped to bring
into existence a statewide community tied directly to the royal household. We find
these notables most prominently in the military and in economically significant
professions, especially those related to trade or to animal husbandry and manage-
ment.9
These were not “new men” in the classical sense. These individuals already had
positions and wealth, but the scale of their activities greatly increased under the
patronage of the royal family of Ur. In some cases, this patronage actually meant
inclusion in the court nobility. Šu-Kabta, the general in charge of the Garšana
estate came from a family of doctors, and his father also had an administrative
title as secretary of the doorkeepers (see Kleinerman 2011); but it was his mar-
riage into the royal family that likely brought with it tremendous new wealth and

–––––––––––––
7. Status within the communities of early Mesopotamia was hereditary. I am describing a situa-
tion in which professionals and members of the local elite, who owed their positions to their birth, were
able to leverage their associations with the royal household into more prominent roles in the new king-
dom.
8. Michalowski 2006: 60 highlighted the intimate nature of some of these alliances, “Some were
literally married into the royal family of Ur, others were symbolically incorporated into the extended
patrimonial clan that ruled the two most important states of the area, Mari and Ur.”
9. Ba’aga, the fattener whose career is discussed in Owen 2013a: 114-119 is a good example of
this type of professional.
 The Third Dynasty of Ur and the Limits of State Power 157

high military position. A more striking example may be that of the chief minister
(s u k k a l - m a h ), Arad-Nanna. He came from a very prominent family in Girsu-
Lagaš and Michalowski (2013b in this volume) suggests that the kings of Ur
adopted the position of chief minister from the previously independent rulers of
that province. Again, he cemented his position through marriage into the royal
family and this further secured his status and that of his family. The most instruc-
tive aspect of these careers for our discussion is not so much the manner in which
they leveraged their positions through royal marriage, but rather the way in which
the royal family reached down into the local networks of notables and elevated
these elites to positions of statewide leadership.
We see the same thing among more mundane professions that were also keys
to state success. Prominent merchants, such as Lu-Nanna of Umma and Turam-ili
of Iri-Saĝrig, appear in texts from various parts of the kingdom, and they were
often handling the king’s business (see Garfinkle 2008). The flourishing of so many
families at all points on the spectrum of elite activity from the family of the chief
minister Arad-Nanna to that of the Nippur notable Ur-Meme to those of mer-
chants, craftsmen and other professionals shows the dependence of the crown on
existing social networks. A critical point for our analysis is the extent to which
kinship groups controlled key professions in southern Mesopotamia (see Garfinkle
in press-c). The hierarchies among these professional groups were not only closed
to outsiders, but they were governed by mechanisms with which the state could
rarely interfere.
For the most part, we do not have large archives that document the individual
activities of these statewide elites. We find evidence for them when they encoun-
tered the provincial institutions and when they connected with the tributary sys-
tem that was likely headquartered at Puzriš-Dagān (see section 3 below). At the
same time, we know that the institutional hierarchies attested in our larger ar-
chives were often mirrored in other areas of the economy and society of late third
millennium BC Mesopotamia. Many of the titles and functions that we associate
with institutional administration in the Ur III period were commonly used among
professional groups as well as non-institutional households. The best example of
this is probably the Sumerian term u g u l a , meaning overseer. In most cases, this
term was not a fixed title but rather an indication of responsibility for a certain
transaction (similar to the term ĝ ì r ).10 The overseer was usually someone in a
position of local authority, often as a result of the individual’s seniority in a profes-
sional association. Indeed, this was likely a privilege, and a responsibility, ac-
corded to older members of the families that dominated crafts and professions.11
Another particularly good example of this phenomenon is the term š a b r a . This
word was once routinely translated as “head of a temple household” or even
–––––––––––––
10. Indeed, the use of these terms (u g u l a and ĝ ì r ) may be related directly to understandings of
seniority within professional and administrative hierarchies. The term u g u l a usually denoted senior
members who were directly responsible for a transaction, either for the collection and management of a
transaction (often the case among merchants and craftsman) or as the receiving official in an institu-
tion. The term ĝ ì r was often used by their colleagues or subordinates when they were placed in charge
of ensuring that the tasks were completed for which the u g u l a were responsible.
11. See Garfinkle in press-c. For the organization of professions and crafts, see Steinkeller 1987
and 1996; Dahl 2010.
158 STEVEN GARFINKLE

“priest”, but is now more commonly understood to mean “chief household adminis-
trator” or “majordomo”. Therefore, we not only encounter numerous š a b r a in our
texts associated with divine households, but also š a b r a associated with non-insti-
tutional households.
The household that Adad-illat administered provides evidence for both the
extent and limits of new state power in Ur III Mesopotamia. He was the š a b r a of
the royal estate of Šu-Kabta and Simat-Ištaran at Garšana.12 Adad-illat’s assistant
in his management of the household was the scribe Puzur-Ninkarak. Together
they were responsible for organizing and keeping track of the work done on the
estate and the resources that it generated. Adad-illat was also identified in other
texts as a messenger and as a royal messenger. He is attested in texts from Nip-
pur, Garšana, and Iri-Saĝrig. Two things are immediately apparent from examin-
ing the household of Šu-Kabta. First, the administration of his estate paralleled
that of the great institutions in terms of both its hierarchy and record keeping.
Second, high level functionaries, like the š a b r a , were also key figures in the new
statewide community of elites. Adad-illat was not only a household administrator,
but he was also a royal messenger traveling across the kingdom.
We see many of these new, and larger, social networks brought together in
texts like NATN 166.13 In this text, the merchants from several cities (Adab,
Umma, and Uruk) pool their resources to deliver tribute in the form of agricultural
labor. My reading of the text suggests that this labor was delivered to Šu-Kabta’s
estate at Garšana under the direction of Adad-illat. First, we should note that the
merchants were categorized in groups associated with particular cities. The collec-
tives of merchants from three cities were fulfilling an obligation to the crown. We
can see in this the ways in which regional socio-economic groups continued to pre-
dominate even in the face of the rise of the territorial kingdom. Second, we can
immediately see the operation of patronage at several levels. The merchants
clearly owed labor to the crown, presumably in return for some aspect of their
business with the state. The recipient of that labor was a royal estate. Thus we see
an additional way in which the royal family extracted resources from local com-
munities; and they did so by co-opting local professional groups who were left on
their own to handle the actual delivery of the labor.
Our sources also illustrate the tension that this patronage created between
provincial and royal authorities. Molina (2010: 210) published a legal text from
Umma in which the governor’s office tried to recover trees that it believed had
been stolen from a provincial forest by a man acting under the authority of Šu-
Kabta’s second in command (see also Heimpel 2009: 4-5). We can imagine that
these trees (along with the thief) were being sheltered at Garšana for the use of the
estate. We do not know how this case was resolved, but it appears that the gover-
nor lacked the authority to remove the accused from the house of the general’s
adjutant. And here we see the ways in which local networks of authority were be-
ing circumvented for the benefit of the state community.

–––––––––––––
12. For the estate at Garšana and the activities of Adad-illat (also read as Adad-tillati), see Owen
and Mayr 2007; Kleinerman and Owen 2009; and Heimpel 2009.
13. See Garfinkle 2010a for a full treatment of this text.
 The Third Dynasty of Ur and the Limits of State Power 159

The strands that made up the fabric of this new and larger community were
social networks that operated over greater distances than individual city-states. In
many ways, this privileged groups that were not directly associated with, or subor-
dinate to, the large institutions of the ancient urban centers of southern Mesopo-
tamia. As I will detail below, the military, and the many opportunities associated
with military service, was a prime example of this process. The operations of the
army required that it include activities throughout the state and beyond its appar-
ent borders. There were other groups in a position to seek out these privileged po-
sitions. Primarily these were groups whose professions already required them to
travel between the urban centers or whose knowledge and skills made them par-
ticularly valuable.14
Merchants, like those collectively listed on NATN 166, are an important cate-
gory of people for this discussion because of their role as intermediaries on behalf
of the growing power of the state. For the purposes of this discussion we can go
beyond the old question of whether the merchants were state functionaries or in-
dependent operators. Let us focus instead on the basics of what the merchants did.
There is no doubt that the largest merchant transactions were made on behalf of
the state. For example, the sale of grain on behalf of the governor dwarfs the other
transactions undertaken by the merchants of Girsu-Lagaš. As I have noted else-
where (Garfinkle 2010b), these same merchants were deeply engaged in transac-
tions on behalf of the b a l a , which was the chief instrument for the collection of
taxes from the provinces by the crown. Indeed, the individual most commonly at-
tested receiving silver from the merchants in Girsu-Lagaš was Lu-Utu, a scribe for
the governor who may also have been a merchant.
Another frequently attested role for the merchants of Girsu-Lagaš was the
purchase of oxen and cows for their institutional clients. Only rarely do we find the
merchants purchasing other livestock, such as sheep and goats. The reason for this
is simple, the state had ample access to enormous herds of sheep and goats, but
not oxen and cows.15 The most critical point to observe here is that ultimately the
institutional clients of the merchants had to negotiate for the cattle. The activity of
the merchants is usually an indication of the limits of state authority and the need
for the crown to accommodate regional socio-economic elites. The merchants oper-
ated throughout the state, though, and this made them, along with soldiers, some
of the most prominently attested statewide actors.

–––––––––––––
14. Some new statewide institutions also required the participation of functionaries who could act
outside of the limited boundaries of the old city-states. Judicial officials are a prime example of this.
The information provided by the Iri-Saĝrig archives on the movements of m a š k i m supports this point
(see Owen 2013c in this volume).
15. There were also significant differences in the ways in which these animals were used. Oxen
were used most often, along with donkeys, as draft animals, while the sheep and goats were critical to
the textile industry. Thus, fewer cattle were necessary. At the same time, as Sigrist 1992: 34 noted, the
number of ovines passing through Drehem dwarfs the number of bovines. The ratio is on the order of
12.5 to 1. On domestic animals in Ur III Mesopotamia, see the relevant articles in the Bulletin on Su-
merian Agriculture VII and VIII.
160 STEVEN GARFINKLE

3. Warfare, Tribute, and the Military

State activity in the Ur III period is most obvious in “foreign” policy and in the
military sector. The royal inscriptions and year names attest to the importance
that the dynasty assigned to its wars. It is remarkable then, as Bertrand Lafont
(2009: 1) noted, how few of our texts directly document the activity of the army. In
my view, the Ur III kingdom as we know it was a consequence of the social and
economic effects of a state of near constant warfare.16 The militarism of the kings
led to the creation of great wealth and great responsibilities, and to an increased
role for the army both abroad and at court. Significantly, warfare offered the crown
opportunities to create social pathways that bound individuals more closely to the
state.
The year names of the Ur III period clearly illustrate the prominence of mili-
tary activity in this era. Between Šulgi 20 and the beginning of the reign of Ibbi-
Suen, a majority of the year names referred to the destruction of foreign cities and
lands.17 The pace of armed conflicts picked up in the aftermath of Šulgi’s destruc-
tion of Karhar, recorded as his 24th year name. As we can see in Figure 1 above,
this was roughly the moment when text production appears to have increased sub-
stantially.18 The really well documented years, from Šulgi 44 to Ibbi-Suen 2, show
us that the famous abundance of records from the Ur III period was directly cor-
related with the military adventurism of its kings. It is not an accident that these
were the best-documented years of the dynasty. Ur III administrators devoted sig-
nificant attention to the results of the military endeavors of the state. As I will
detail below, the delivery of tribute and booty was not only of economic signifi-
cance, but also served as a measure of the prestige and loyalty of royal functionar-
ies. The constant warfare of the Ur III kings, particularly in the reigns of Šulgi and
Amar-Suen, was directed at several goals. First, the success of these endeavors
was the foundation of much of royal self-representation (see section 4 below). Se-
cond, the destruction of forces to the east guaranteed control of key trade routes
and pasturage while also preventing incursions into Mesopotamia by outsiders.
Finally, the military provided both wealth and social opportunity for the new
statewide elite. The Ur III state quickly became dominated by tribute and the
prestige that accompanied it at all levels of elite activity.
The military arena was the primary area for royal activity and advancement.
The traditional elites in the southern Mesopotamian heartland, despite their po-
litical subordination, remained entrenched players in the local economies, but for-
eign campaigns offered opportunities for the new royal elite both at home and

–––––––––––––
16. For a discussion of constant warfare in the Ur III state, see Garfinkle in press-a; and see
Michalowski 2011.
17. Between Šulgi 20 and Ibbi-Suen 8, 24 years were named directly for military activity. During
this same era, a further 20 years were named for previous conquests (the m u - u s 2 - s a “year after the
year” formulae). For a list of the year names, see Sigrist and Gomi 1991: 319-29; an online version of
this list can be found at the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative: www.cdli.ucla.edu.
18. Some of this pattern may of course result from the accident of discovery, but Adams (2009: 2)
suggested that this picture is not likely to be radically altered by new discoveries. The chronological
distribution of texts in newly discovered archives, like those of Iri-Saĝrig, also accords well with the
pattern observed in Figure 1.
 The Third Dynasty of Ur and the Limits of State Power 161

abroad. The best evidence for the economic and social significance of warfare can
be found in the texts from Puzriš-Dagān. Several categories of texts from this site
relate to warfare and military activities: booty texts,19 the delivery of tribute from
dependent areas,20 and the frequent offerings of often single animals by groups of
men associated with the royal and military sector. The latter category is particu-
larly well attested, with over 1000 examples in the available corpus. In these texts,
a group of men, from a handful to several dozen, each delivered an animal, most
often one lamb. The administrators at Puzriš-Dagān received the animals on be-
half of the crown.
During the most prominent war years, Šulgi 45-48 and Amar-Suen 4-7, we find
the greatest concentration of this type of delivery. For example, among the texts of
this type that I have identified, approximately 32% (or 450 texts) date to Šulgi 46-
48, and approximately 21% (or 305 texts) date to Amar-Suen 4-8. Though the men
on the delivery lists came from very different parts of the kingdom, they were con-
nected through their service directly to the crown. This is consistent with the evi-
dence from the various settlements closely associated with royal authority. Places
like Garšana, Iri-Saĝrig, and Puzriš-Dagān were filled with soldiers, captains,
royal messengers, and other personnel whose careers afforded them opportunities
outside of the traditional socio-economic hierarchies of the established cities in
southern Mesopotamia. We often find these men associated with merchants. The
social status of merchants rose during the Ur III period as the royal sector came to
depend upon their services. We can see this in the Puzriš-Dagān texts in which
merchants occasionally appear as the only other professionals alongside generals
and priests delivering lambs to fulfill royal obligations.
If we look at some examples of these texts, we can bring both their content and
their purpose into focus. MVN 1 133 recorded the delivery of 27 small cattle in
Amar-Suen 8. The first five donors were identified as merchants, and they were
followed by larger donations from a priest and from the governor of Nippur. In
contrast to many of the texts in this group, MVN 1 133 noted that fourteen of the
animals came from the b a l a of the governor of Nippur and were received by Ur-
saga.21 In most cases the origins of the animals are not listed and they are only
identified with their donor and sometimes their destination, usually the royal
household or a temple. In Ontario 1 135, fifteen small cattle were donated in Šu-
Suen 2. The first five donors were again identified as merchants, and they were
followed by the governor of Nippur, a š a b r a , a captain, and two men who were
likely generals (one of whom was the king’s uncle Babati). One of the merchants in
both of these examples was a certain Lu-Nanna. He was probably the same indi-
vidual as the overseer of merchants from Umma who was quite active at Puzriš-
Dagān (see Garfinkle 2008). Lu-Nanna was a frequent donor of small cattle, both
in large groups including his fellow merchants, as well as in small groups in which
he appeared in select company. In Amar-Suen 5 (TRU 123), he donated a lamb
alongside a š a b r a , the governor of Umma, and two men not identified by their

–––––––––––––
19. See Lafont 2009; Garfinkle in press-a.
20. See Michalowski 1978; Steinkeller 1991; Maeda 1992.
21. It is tempting to identify this individual with Ur-saga, the merchant who often collected silver
on behalf of the b a l a in Girsu-Lagaš (see Garfinkle 2010b).
162 STEVEN GARFINKLE

profession. Earlier that same year, Lu-Nanna appeared on a list of donors that
included not only a governor and several š a b r a , but also three men identified as
Amorites, including Naplanum (BIN 3 538). These lists show the way in which the
three core constituencies of the new state were brought together on tablets, and
perhaps in person, to demonstrate their continued allegiance to the crown. In BIN
3 538 we find foreign dignitaries, the traditional urban elite, and the burgeoning
economic and military elite joining together to participate in the rituals of the
state.
When foreigners, generals, and captains appear on these lists, we presume that
the source of the animals was the booty they received during foreign campaigns.
This may be the origin of all of the donated livestock or it may have come out of the
estates of these individuals. In any case the frequency of the individual donations
and the sum total of the group donations indicates an enormous extraction of trib-
ute by the kings from the Mesopotamian elite. This was clearly a reciprocal ar-
rangement, however, as these members of the royal elite expected to continue to
profit from this arrangement. The delivery of the offerings was a sign of both their
continued service to the crown and the privilege afforded to them by the king’s
patronage. This was also a precarious system that depended not only on the con-
tinued participation of the elite, but also more significantly on the continued mili-
tary success of the kings. This scheme relied upon the ability of the kings to prime
this system with continuous booty from the periphery. The system was in decline
by the later years of Šu-Suen and ceased to function early in the reign of Ibbi-
Suen.

4. State Formation in Early Mesopotamia: The Question of Empire

The kingdom of Ur at the end of the third millennium BC is routinely described

as an empire, and this usually implies a grand strategy to conquer and administer
neighboring territory outside of the heartland of southern Mesopotamia. Just as
scholars have begun to question the absolute power of the state under the Ur III
kings, we now need to question as well their grip on the surrounding area.22 There
is little direct evidence for the kings of Ur ruling over the territories that they
claimed to subjugate, though Susa was an exception in this regard.23 In my view,
the frequent campaigns of this period were raids undertaken with the goals of
making safe the kingdom and making wealthy the royal family and its clients.
Most of my discussion up to this point has focused on making the best use that
we can of our administrative archives to determine the extent of state power in the
Ur III period; however, given the fact that these texts tell us very little about royal
administration and even less about the army, we need to look at a broader range of
sources to determine the level of state control of the periphery. Of course, the ad-
ministrative texts tell us about the extraction of resources from the periphery,
–––––––––––––
22. Michalowski’s recent epistolary history of the period is a leader in this sense as well; see, for
example, 2011: 12.
23. Susa was exceptional, in my opinion, because conceptually it was not part of the Mesopota-
mian periphery. The culture and environment of Susa were quite familiar to the southern Mesopotami-
ans and presented a contrast with the highland areas that were the targets of so many of the Ur III
campaigns.
 The Third Dynasty of Ur and the Limits of State Power 163

especially in terms of livestock, but the ability to obtain wealth and tribute from
neighboring areas does not equate to active control of those regions. Indeed, we
should start by asking ourselves if there is compelling evidence that the kings of
Ur had such territorial ambitions outside of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys.
Such ambitions fit neatly into our assumptions about kingdoms in the ancient
Near East. They also appear to match the surviving evidence from some of the
royal inscriptions of the second half of the third millennium BC. After all, the
claim to rule “totality” originated with the kingdom of Sargon in the 24th century;
and the most common epithet for the kings of Ur was as “rulers of the four quar-
ters of the universe”.24 Certainly, these claims imply that the kings of southern
Mesopotamia in this era recognized no peers on a formal level. They viewed their
kingship as having no equal, and this must have been reinforced in their eyes and
those of their court when they achieved divine status and were worshipped along-
side the traditional gods of the Mesopotamian pantheon.
This does not mean that they meant to actually rule over anyone other than
the familiar black-headed people of Sumer and Akkad. Let me turn briefly to the
year names to support this point. Above I highlighted that the year names are
among our best evidence for the frequency of military activity in the Ur III period.
This is especially the case for the last decade of Šulgi’s reign. We often assume that
the campaigns referred to in the year names denote conquest and not just victory,
and we need to question this assumption. Do the year names really reflect empire
or do they simply reflect successful military activity? And how did they define such
success? Šulgi’s 44th year was named: “Year: Simurrum and Lullubum were de-
stroyed for the ninth time.”25 Indeed, if outright conquest and administration was
the goal, then why would Šulgi acknowledge his repeated failure to subdue Simur-
rum? If, instead, the goal was to highlight the king’s ability to, once again, defeat
and plunder a neighboring kingdom, then he was laying claim to near constant
success.26 As Michalowski (2011: 12-13) noted,
The well-known case of the highland city of Simurrum serves as the best illustra-
tion of the futility of some of the martial successes proclaimed in the year names:
Šulgi claimed victory or, more literally, the destruction of Simurrum, nine times,
and yet it still caused problems for his successors.

But what if we go a step further and take Šulgi at his word. What does it mean to
destroy Simurrum (and Lullubum) nine times? Is this a record of futility or over-
whelming success? Our understanding of royal statements and propaganda in an-
cient Mesopotamia suggests that the kings of Ur would not have so loudly pro-
claimed their failures. Granted, most inhabitants of the Ur III state were not in a
–––––––––––––
24. On these titles, see Michalowski 2010, and 2013b in this volume.
25. This year name is good evidence that the frequency of warfare is not adequately reflected in
our administrative sources, and this is part of the argument for viewing the Third Dynasty of Ur as a
period of constant military activity. Šulgi destroyed Simurrum for the ninth time as noted in his 44th
year name, but only three of the previous campaigns were recorded in his year names. And the name of
his 45th year had him destroying Simurrum yet again, along with Urbilum, Lullubum, and Karhar.
26. Michalowski 2013a made the case that we ought to understand the use of the verb h u l in the
year names as meaning “to defeat” rather than “to destroy”. His analysis supports the broader semantic
range that I would like to assign to the type of military action signified by h u l . On h u l , see also Mar-
chesi 2013: 287.
164 STEVEN GARFINKLE

position to read the year names themselves, but even if the audience was as nar-
row as the literate members of the various administrative units of the kingdom, we
are on safe ground believing that the year names were intended to convey stability
and royal achievement.
The kings of Ur acknowledged no limit to their talents, to their martial feroc-
ity, and to their relationship with the gods, but none of this implies that they un-
derstood their authority to be limitless on the ground. Indeed the royal hymns bear
this out. Certainly the kings were mighty warriors, and Šulgi claimed to have
“placed a yoke on the neck of Elam” (Šulgi B), but for the most part the kings
meted out destruction and came home with lapis lazuli, a particularly good meta-
phor for loot. If Šulgi was indeed the shadow “that lies over the mountain lands”
(Šulgi B), then that referred as much to the light he cast over the valley as to the
rule he projected over foreign lands. The kings of Ur, and their armies of clients,
went to war to protect their kingdom and to expand its coffers. The policies of the
kings in maintaining dynastic alliances with powerful families in the periphery fit
in nicely with the idea that they recognized the limits of their political reach.
The ephemeral nature of Ur’s military presence in the periphery matched the
temporary conditions of the tributary economy in the heartland. In spite of the
claims made by our texts, both in their content and in their numbers, the kingdom
of Ur was a short lived state. Once the ability and charisma of the kings began to
fade, they could no longer raid the periphery with impunity and feed the system of
patronage they had established at home.

5. Conclusion

In a recent treatment of early Mesopotamia, Robert McC. Adams (2009: 3)

stated, “Ur III was aggressively successful as an empire for a half-century or so.”
While I obviously would prefer a different label for this success than empire, I
agree with his diagnosis that the failures of the state arose from this brief period of
accomplishment. Both Adams and Norman Yoffee (1995: 295-6) noted that the
Third Dynasty of Ur was successful in spite of the absence of real centralized insti-
tutions of government rather than because of them. The crown in this era was good
at extracting resources, at home and abroad, and at diverting those resources to
the growing royal family and its clients. In all of these endeavors, the kings relied
on local and regional elites who could be co-opted by this system of patronage. A
large scribal administration came into existence more to document these activities
than to manage them. These administrators had to ensure that the resources were
being registered and properly distributed. The vast extant archives are proof of the
temporary success of the court and its clients, but the texts show us the limits of
this power rather than exemplifying the creation of new instruments of govern-
ment administration.
Kings like Šulgi encouraged the development of statewide structures but they
did not create a firm institutional foundation to provide stability for those struc-
tures. Establishing more statewide institutions ran into both ideological and prac-
tical problems. It was one thing to assume greater control over the temple estates
in the various cities, but it would have been impossible to dissociate them from the
regional social networks in which they were embedded. There was also little room
in the traditional hierarchies of the provinces to reward crown dependents. This
 The Third Dynasty of Ur and the Limits of State Power 165

encouraged the kings to look towards centralizing structures, but the prevailing
incentives to retain hereditary privileges undermined the effectiveness of these
efforts. The army was the only statewide institution to break entirely free of local
control, but it was nonetheless characterized by the persistence of familial control
of offices, and it was also dependent upon the continuation of past military suc-
cesses. Adams (2009: 4) envisioned the situation as follows:
Here we see not the densely occupied landscape under overall royal management
such as has sometimes been proposed (Adams 2008: §§3.2-3.8), but the outward
scattering of the royal progeny into model townships with royal largess (and hap-
less provincial support as well) but little evidence of the intended transfer of ac-
companying, more serious responsibilities. The suspicion thus lurks that Sumerian
šagina may sometimes have signified a hereditary rank, like lord or marquess, and
only secondarily (or not at all) as general.

We need only include the clients of the state alongside these royal progeny and we
now have a clear view of the kingdom of the Third Dynasty of Ur, and of the limits
of its power and success.

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