More than 200 clay cuneiform tablets and 60 seals linked to the Ancient Mesopotamian government were discovered by archaeologists at the ancient Sumerian city Girsu or the present-day site Tello in southern Iraq. The tablets reveal evidence of a complex bureaucratic system.
A team of archaeologists from the British Museum and Iraq uncovered hundreds of administrative tablets, dating back to the Akkadian period (2300-2150 BCE), with minute details ranging from scholarly texts to barley rations. These findings were part of the state archives of the ancient Sumerian site while the city was under the control of the Akkad dynasty, which is the first known empire.
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“These are the spreadsheets of empire, the very first material evidence of the very first empire in the world—the real evidence of the imperial control and how it actually worked,” Sébastien Rey, the British Museum’s curator for ancient Mesopotamia and director of the Girsu Project, told the Guardian.
“It is extremely important because, for the first time, we have concrete evidence – with artefacts in situ,” he continued. “They note absolutely everything down. If a sheep dies at the very edge of the empire, it will be noted. They are obsessed with bureaucracy.”
Though it was still a patrilineal society, one of the most notable discoveries was the inclusion of women within important state offices, including some in high priestess roles, which is highly unusual among comparable ancient societies.
One of the world’s oldest cities, Girsu was considered a sanctuary of the Sumerian heroic god Ningirsu in the 3rd millennium BCE. An independent city that at its height spanned hundreds of acres was eventually conquered by the Mesopotamian king Sargon, who hailed from the city Akkad (believed to be near present-day Baghdad), in 2300 BCE.
All the Sumerian cities of Mesopotamia succumbed to the same fate and were conquered by Sargon. Until now, however, there was little surviving evidence from this time beyond unreliable copies of Akkadian inscriptions created later. Instead, these tablets are written in the early cuneiform writing system.
The tablets were identified within a large state archive building that was constructed from traditional mud-brick walls.
Seals found at the site were also able to be reconstructed, the Art Newspaper reported Thursday, which indicate Naram-Sin’s “total control” over the empire.
Additional artifacts found on a mound called Tablet Hill shed light on a standard metric system, along with visual propaganda of Naram-Sin wearing a horned crown akin to a god.
Girsu was originally excavated by a team of French archaeologists in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but the findings were poorly recorded and the site was subsequently targeted by looters following the two Gulf wars.
These latest excavation efforts were conducted as part of the the Girsu Project, which is a collaboration between the British Museum and the Iraqi government’s State Board of Antiquities and Heritage that has been funded by the charitable foundation Meditor Trust. While they plan to continue work at the site, they also plan to revisit previously unearthed artifacts. Those recently unearthed will be housed at the Iraqi Museum in Baghdad, where they will be further studied.
The highly informative cuneiform tablets not only shed light on the day-to-day goings on of how the empire functioned, but also conveys larger societal values like education and female leadership.