This short book by an expert in the history and culture of the Sargonic period in Mesopotamia (2300–2150 bce) offers the publication of 161 cuneiform texts from the ancient city of Girsu, modern Telloh in southern Iraq. Reaching at least 370 hectares by the end of the Early Dynastic period (2900–2300 bce), Girsu was one of the major cities in Mesopotamia and the capital of an influential city-state of Lagash on the Lower Tigris. The megapolis retained its grandeur as a provincial centre under the Akkadian and Ur III kings during the rest of the third millennium.
STTI 2 succeeds the first part (1982) of the author's project of publishing all archival documents from Girsu kept in Istanbul which have been known until now only by their brief description in Inventaire des tablettes de Tello I, II and V (Paris: E. Leroux, 1910, 1911 and 1921). The author does scholars a huge service by publishing these texts in transliteration, which brings the number of the published Sargonic Girsu texts in Istanbul to 745 (pp. xii–xxi).
The total corpus of Sargonic Girsu archival texts exceeds 3,800 (Foster, The Age of Agade, Oxford and New York, 2016, p. 70). Around 1,800 published documents belonged to the archive of Lugal-ušumgal (see Schrakamp in W. Sallaberger and I. Schrakamp, ARCANE III. History & Philology, Turnhout, 2015, p. 233). This governor (ensi2) ruled over the Lagash “province” in the second half of king Naram-Suen's reign and remained in power under his successor, Šarkališarri (late 23rd–early 22nd century bce). The archive falls into the so-called “Classical Sargonic” palaeographic stage and is synchronous with other state and private archives from Adab, Umma, Nippur, Isin and elsewhere.
Foster states in the preface that he did a minimum of modernization to his 1980s transliterations and resisted the temptation to correct them without inspecting the originals anew. Although the readings of some signs and words are antiquated, the transliterations (pp. 3–97) will appear reliable to scholars of the Sargonic period. Asterisks refer to a list of hand-copied collations which concern many questionable passages (pp. 99–102). The arrangement of the transliterated texts follows (old) museum numbers. P. xi helps the reader to navigate their contents. Foster uses the following rubrics: “birds and eggs” (9 texts), “bricks” (2), “fish and aquatic creatures” (29), “foods” (28), “grain” (63), “land” (1), “livestock” (20), “metals” (8), “oils and aromatics” (7), “personnel” (17), a “sale document” (with a man from Madga involved), “student exercises” (8), “textiles” (4), “wool” (2) and a “work assignment” (1).
The author does not offer a commentary to these texts. The only additional data found in the main body of the book include the measurement of the tablets (thickness remains unrecorded), their form, and the nature of their damage and remarks on the neatness of the script which the author relates to various “levels of accountability” within the Girsu administration (pp. vii–viii). The book concludes with the indexes, which cover individuals, households, and geographical names mentioned in these texts. One needs to have a strong background in the socioeconomic history of the Sargonic period and the typology and terminology of its written remains to appreciate this work fully.
The majority of the texts document the production of food within the “institutional economy” of Girsu. Given its environmental positioning in the marshlands leading to the Gulf, many documents offer an impressive typology of aquatic food resources. However, scholars of any aspect of Sargonic history, society and culture will find new data for their research here. Several texts arrested my attention: a record of “taboo-people (uz-ga) of the milling house” accompanied by children (L.1165), a list of private slaves who stay at various locations (L.5852), 117 night watchmen (en-nu gi6, L.4680) and a record of “the select” (Akkadian nisqū) and “people of the city” guarding city-walls (L.9383).
L. 4701a reminds us of the effects of the Sargonic “imperialism”. This list of foreign women and children allows reconstructing the following scenario. A victorious military campaign of the king Naram-Suen at ŠeNAMindaya and Gaganišum in Northern Mesopotamia resulted in spoils of women and children. These unfortunates were intended to end up as slaves in the households of the top officials in Girsu (chief scribe, land recorder, etc.). However, all slaves died or fled en route to Sumer. This document reinforces the reviewer's argument that the import of forced labour from Northern Mesopotamia (Subartu) has intensified during the rise of the first complex Mesopotamian state (Bartash, “Going for the subarean brand. The import of labor in Early Babylonia”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 77, 2018). Given the references to Ebla in the Girsu texts, I prefer to identify Gaganišum not with Kaneš (J.G. Westenholz apud Schrakamp, ARCANE III, p. 234) but with Agagališ of the Ebla archives, Ikakali of the Hittite sources. Alfonso Archi localizes it to the south-east of the Anti-Taurus, toward Gaziantep (Archi, Ebla and Its Archives, Boston and Berlin, 2015, p. 282). Considering the well-known year-date of Naram-Suen, which states that he reached the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates and was victorious against ŠeNAMindaya, the latter may be localized to the east of Agagališ and the north of modern Siverek in Turkey. The slaving route was, therefore, at least 1,200 km long.
I congratulate the author on this work which would otherwise have remained in drawers. It is another step towards the reconstruction of the Sargonic archives from Girsu, a city that has contributed immensely to our understanding of the historical and cultural dynamics in 2500–2000 bce southern Mesopotamia.
