Keywords
Ligri, Girsu, toponym, Ur III

§1. The recent publication by G. and W. Farber of the Ur III tablet ÄS 1208 in Munich (ZA 91 [2001] 208-209) confirms the existence of the place-name Ligri^ki in the texts of this period. This name is consequently found written in the forms li₂-ig-ri₂^ki, li-ig-ri₂^ki, and perhaps li-ig-ri^ki. It is therefore necessary to abandon my proposal (Lafont-Yildiz TCTI 1 [1989] 263, and again Lafont NABU 1990/17) to read the sign sequence LU₂.NI.IG.URU.KI.ME as lu₂-i₃-gal₂-uru^ki-me, suggesting that these people were “persons being in the city”, rather than “those who are inside the palace” (ša₃-e₂-gal-me), a category found in the same texts. A new tablet in Istanbul that I am currently editing (no. 2 in the list below) had already led me to reject a proposal that posed obvious problems of syntax.

§2. The toponym Ligri^ki nonetheless leaves open questions for further discussion; indeed, we may look at this matter with renewed interest once all available attestations of Ligri^ki have been gathered together, providing us with the small but interesting list displayed below. The corpus describing Ligri^ki, essentially made up of small tablets recording allocations of food and beer to individuals, includes altogether 29 references in 28 texts (the list takes into account the Istanbul tablets to be published in TCTI 3):

§3.

Several observations are possible from this list:

§4.  The two occurrences (nos. 1 and 28) of the writing of the toponym with LI rather than NI as initial sign confirm its reading as /Ligri/ or possibly /Likri/. Text no. 28 would appear to be the only writing with RI rather than URU as final sign (but this point requires confirmation).

§5.  The interesting place-name sequence: Huhnuri / Marhaši / Ligri in text no. 2 may indicate the approximate geographic horizon of the city of Ligri. Based on its Ligri / Marhaši association, this text is doubtless related to our nos. 24 and 26.

§6.  Most of these 28 documents evidently derive from a coherent archive of texts that covers a very short period, between the 23/xi/SS1 and the 27/v/SS2, with a majority of the tablets dated of the months iv and v of the year SS2. Ninety percent of the attestations of the place-name Ligri^ki (text nos. 2 through 23, 26) belong to this two-month archive of documents from Tello. These archival texts record daily food and beer distributions to the following individuals:

• at the end of the year ss 1: lu₂ hu-uh₂-nu-ri^ki / lu₂ mar-ha-ši^ki / lu₂ li₂-ig-ri₂^ki / lu₂ a-LU₃^?-me (among several other beneficiaries) (text nos. 2 and 26);
• in month iv of the year ss 2: ša₃-e₂-gal-me / lu₂ li₂-ig-ri₂^ki-me (text nos. 3 through 13);
• on the 2nd and 3rd days of month v of the year ss 2: ^dnanše-kam / ša₃-e₂-gal-me / lu₂ li₂-ig-ri₂^ki-me (text nos. 14 and 15);
• from the 11th to the 27th day of month v of the year ss 2: ^dnanše-kam / ša₃-e₂-gal-me / lu₂ li₂-ig-ri₂^ki-me / sagi-me  (text nos. 16 through 23).

        Thus, one has the sense of a kind of delegation sent from Iran to the land of Sumer at the beginning of Shu-Suen’s reign that was supplemented with the addition of various individuals during the several weeks of its stay in Girsu. However, it is at present difficult to understand why certain individuals are associated with this delegation, including those designated with proper names (Nanše-kam, about whom nothing very precise can be said), with staff categories (ša₃-e₂-gal-me), with occupations (sagi-me) and with various city names (lu₂+GN^ki). Only text no. 26 (a summary account spanning several columns, which is rather atypical among Tello tablets) might help us to better understand the context of this group of texts (see pp. 105-106 of H. Limet, TSU, where the various recipients are described). This tablet no. 26 probably comes from Tello (and not from Umma as proposed by its editor). It bears no date, but we can with some confidence propose a date in the same period as the other texts of the file (ss 1 or 2). This text registers among the recipients of food and beer: lu₂ ligri^ki-me / lu₂ marhaši^ki-me / lu₂  a-LU₃^?-me / sagi-me / ša₃-e₂-gal-me. The very substantial measures of grain products distributed to the three first categories should be underscored: 24 gur of kaš sig₅, 176 gur of kaš DU, 71 gur of ninda šu, 127 gur of ninda DU and so on (TSU 108 iv 8-12).

§7.  Reference no. 24 is the only text of this list that evidently comes from Umma. It was sealed by lu₂-eb-gal / dub-sar / dumu ur-gi₆-par₄ / gudu₄ ^dinanna, an official well attested at Umma precisely between the years ss 1 and 3 (see R. Mayr, unpublished dissertation, Leiden, 1997). This text also records the distribution of rations, closing with the expression (ll. 4-7): sa₂-du₁₁ dug-utul₂ gal-gal / lu₂ li₂-ig-ri₂^ki / u₃ lu₂ mar-ha-ši^ki / giri₃ ur₄-ša₃-ta-lu₂. Since it is dated to ss 2, it must clearly be added to our file. It might represent a record of the delegation’s stopover at Umma during its journey to or from Girsu.

§8.  Ultimately, we must wonder why, aside from this group of texts covering less that 6 months, the Iranian city of Ligri is attested so rarely in the Sumerian documentation of the second half of the 3rd millennium. If our speculation of a possible Iranian delegation is correct, this toponym might represent a city that has entered the written record with but this singular diplomatic gesture to Girsu.

§9.  From an archiving point of view, and with an eye toward the problem of the distribution of Tello’s administrative tablets among museums and collections around the world, it can be stated that of this coherent text group, which must have been originally collected in a unique place, 19 tablets went to Istanbul, two to Pennsylvania, one to the British Museum in London, and one to Brussels (the large account tablet of 10+4 columns).

Version: 11 September 2002

@article{Lafont2002Toponym,
	note = {[Online; accessed 2024-11-21]},
	address = {Oxford; Berlin; Los Angeles},
	author = {Lafont, Bertrand},
	journal = {Cuneiform Digital Library Bulletin},
	issn = {1540-8760},
	number = {3},
	year = {2002},
	publisher = {Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative},
	title = {The {Toponym} {Ligriki}},
	url = {https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/articles/cdlb/2002-3},
	volume = {2002},
}

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