From All the Stacks to the Center of Ur

A Note on the Handling of Finished Garments in the Neo-Sumerian Period

Abstract

This short article offers a revised translation and interpretation of an Ur III tablet first published by Walther Sallaberger in 1993/94. The tablet records how Iddin-Erra, in all likelihood a fuller working in the city of Ur, is receiving takkīrum garments. The text specifies that the garments were requested from all the (surrounding) textile stacks and that they should be brought to the center of Ur. This suggests that textiles were stored temporarily outside the city, or in the outskirts of the city, before they were ordered to be transported into the city proper. The article argues that this handling of the textiles within the administration of the Ur is comparable to how different food products and agricultural produce were kept in temporary storage facilities outside the city before they were brought to the central facilities of the city.