Cuneiform 103 · Chapter 17

Silver changes hands

The laws say what SHOULD happen. Here is a tablet where it DID: a loan from Sippar, written a generation before Hammurapi was king. It is small, complete, and utterly ordinary — money, interest, a borrower, a deadline, witnesses, a date — and that ordinariness is the point. This is what most cuneiform IS.

Batch eighteen — and a veteran

The loan, whole

Item by item — and watch the languages:

• 1 mana kaspim — “one minathe Mesopotamian pound: a weight of about 500 grams, divided into sixty shekels — silver by the mina was serious wealth of silver”: the silver-word is 102’s pure-metal compound crossing whole — written KU₃.BABBAR, spoken kaspum — under 101’s day-sign doing its “white” duty.
• MAŠ₂ … GIN₂ uṣṣab — the rate: on the minathe Mesopotamian pound: a weight of about 500 grams, divided into sixty shekels — silver by the mina was serious wealth, a third of a shekelthe basic Mesopotamian weight, about 8 grams — one shekel of silver was roughly a hired worker's monthly wage “will GROW” — uṣṣab, the adding-verb in the durativethe Akkadian verb shape for what happens or shall happen — inaddin, "he shall pay": the laws pronounce every sentence in it. Interest as the herdsman’s arithmetic: the flock bears kids, the silver bears shekelsthe basic Mesopotamian weight, about 8 grams — one shekel of silver was roughly a hired worker's monthly wage.
• Sîn-imittī ša ina Ša-ibdî wašbu — the borrower, pinned to his village. The verb wears a quiet final -u that verbs take inside a ša-clause — the grammars’ subjunctive; met here, named, and left for the frontier.
• KI … ŠU BA-AN-TI — “from Zablum … he has received”: and this is not Akkadian. The frame of the contract is SUMERIAN — the notary’s formulary, five hundred years senior to the borrower — and your 102 reads it as grammar, not incantation: šu … ti, “took in hand,” with the chain’s ba-an- in the middle.
• ūm kinūni — the deadline: the midwinter brazier-festival, when the braziers are lit. No calendar dates; the year turns by festivals.
• I₃-LA₂-E — “he shall weigh out”: Sumerian again, the formulary’s twin of the laws’ išaqqal — two languages, one balance-pan.

The date and the names

• The year has no number. Babylon dates by the year-nameBabylon's dating system: years carry no numbers — each is NAMED for a royal deed ("the year Immerum built Inanna's temple"); the scribes' lists of these names are how we order their history: each year is named for a royal deed, and this one — “the year Immerum built Inanna’s temple” — is how the tablet tells you WHEN. Scribes kept lists of these names; those lists are how we order their history today.
• 𒀭AN · [an], diŋir · heaven; god𒂗EN · [en] · lord; high priest𒍪ZU · [su] · the -su left when -šu melts: iktašassu — the moon-god’s name, and a scribal wink: written EN.ZU with 101’s lord-sign and 102’s knowing-sign, but READ backwards: Suen — Sîn. Even god-names play the rebusborrowing a picture for its sound instead of its meaning — drawing a sun to write "son" game.
• IGI — “before”: the witness is an eye. The sign’s oldest job, doing courtroom duty. And the first witness’s name is a whole sentence — “Sîn heard me” — built on the hearing-verb you will meet again in the last chapter’s blessing.
• A man named Sîn-imittī witnesses a loan taken by a man named Sîn-imittī: the same name serving another man. Sippar had many; the tablet does not blink.

Two languages, one tablet

Step back and look at what you just read. The LIFE of the document is Akkadian — the growing interest, the borrower and his village, the festival. The FRAME is Sumerian — KI, ŠU BA-AN-TI, I₃-LA₂-E, MU — a notary’s formulary already five centuries old, kept exactly as 102 taught it to you, long after Sumerian left the streets. Dead languages keep working: ask any diploma written in Latin. You now read both layers, and the green tells you — sign by sign — which is which: where the capitals are Akkadian (KASPIM, ŪM), a sumerograma Sumerian word-sign kept inside Akkadian text as learned shorthand — written LUGAL, read aloud as Akkadian šarrum, "king" is being voiced; where they are Sumerian (ŠU BA-AN-TI), the old formulary itself holds the pen.

Drill before you go on

1. Write 𒈧MASZ₂ · [maš] · the kid goat — and the interest on a loan: growth measured the herdsman's way, 𒂆GIN₂ · [šiqlum] · the shekel-sign — written GIN₂, spoken šiqlum: the weight silver moves in, 𒈹INANNA · [Ištar] · the goddess's reed-bundle standard — written INANNA, spoken Ištar in Akkadian mouths from memory; say maš — and for the other two, say what the reader says: šiqlum, Ištar.
2. Spell the interest line and say it whole. Whose arithmetic is a kid goat?
3. ŠU BA.AN.TI — whose grammar is that? Parse it with your 102.
4. uṣṣab and išaqqal — one grows, one weighs: name each verb’s language and tense.
5. Date this tablet aloud, the scribes’ way.

Next: the king himself, near the stele’s end, invites you — by name, almost — to read.