The Reconstruction Of The Archives Of (?)u-erra, A Head Of The Herdsmen Of The Livestock Agency Of Ur-â…¢ Dynasty In Puzri(?)-dagan (Amar-sin1Vi-(?)u-sin6Vi)

The Ur III Dynasty of Mesopotamia reached its peak during the reign of Kingulgi. With the increase of the national power, a great amount of tribute animals werededicated to the king. More frequently, the animals with fine quality were sacrificedto the temples and presented as gifts to the foreign envoys or leaders by the royalfamily and governors. At the same time, the nobles, officials and soldiers also neededlarge quantity of meat offering. Therefore ulgi established a large livestock agencyby the name of é-Puzri-Dagan, which is in morden Drehem, taking charge of thecomplicated income and expenditure accounts of animals. This central livestockagency played an important role in the economic and administrative system of Ur IIIdynasty.This thesis is a reconstruction of u-Erra’s working archives in the livestockagency, who is a head of the herdsmen, and it will be devided into two parts: the firstpart is a discussion of u-Erra’s identity, main responsibilities and contacts; thesecond part is a reconstruction of relevant documents following the chronologicalorder, within which are the Sumerian transliteration, English and Chinese translation.From the archives we know that the titles of u-Erra were ‘head of the herdsmen(ku7)’ and ‘scribe (dub-sar)’. His working period was from the6thmonth of the1styear of Amar-Sin to the6thmonth of the6thyear of u-Sin. There are three mainaspects of his job. Firstly, he took over various kinds of sheep, oxen and donkeys fromthe manager Abba-sagga, manager assistant Intaea, who became manager in the9thyear of Amar-Sin’s reign, Duga and Ur-kug-nun-na, who worked in Naqabtum.Sencondly, he kept accounts for his own herdsmen. Thirdly, he expended donkeys tothe dog keepers and handed over dead animals to Ur-ni ar and ulgi-urumu, who aredead animal officials.