Several years ago, I published a group of texts belonging to a larger series that recorded labor assignments for teams of workers from the city of Girsu (Allred 2008). At the time of publication, one of those texts, Fs Sigrist 16, no. 4, was available to me in transliteration only. This transliteration was highly problematic, however, as it featured a number of mistakes including both internal computational errors, as well as inconsistencies in relation to the other texts belonging to the series.

As noted in Englund 2010, however, a hand copy of the tablet has appeared in the recently-published YOS 15 as number 105. According to the volume's catalog, the text belonged to a Robert Garrett of Baltimore, MD. This was almost certainly the former Olympic medalist (he won gold for the shot put and discus, and silver for the high jump and long jump in Athens in 1896) and investment banker who was a well known collector of Middle Eastern manuscripts (Special to the New York Times 1961). The tablet's current whereabouts remain unknown.

The copy of this text and a corrected transliteration, as well as a commentary on this text, are presented below:

Fs. Sigrist 16, no. 4	transliteration		translation
	obverse
	1. 1(geš2) 3(u) 7(diš) guruš nu-banda3        ur-gešgigir		97 workers (under) the overseer Ur-Gigir
	2. 1(geš2) la2 2(diš-tenû) nu-banda3        igi-zu-bar-ra		60 minus 2 (under) the overseer        Igi-zubara
	3. 3(u) 6(diš) [nu]-banda3 ur-nigargar		36 (under) under the overseer Ur-Nigar
	4. 6(diš) [nu-banda3] lu2-dba-ba6		6 (under) [the overseer] Lu-Baba
	blank line
	5. |ŠU+LAGAB| 3(geš2) 1(u) 7(diš)        guruš		Total: 197 workers
	6. ša3-bi-ta		From it:
	7. 3(u) lugal-ra us2-sa		30 royal followers
	8. 1(u) e2 uz-ga		10 at the E'uzga
	9. 5(diš) e2 gu4-gaz		5 at the slaughterhouse
	10. 5(diš) duḫ-il2		5 bran-carriers
	11. 5(diš) gu2 gir		5 for processing (bitumen)?
	12. 3(diš) gu2 gir ma2 lugal		3 for processing (bitumen)? for a “royal”        boat
	13. 5(diš) gu2 gir murgu gur8		3 for processing (bitumen)? for the back        of a barge
	14. 3(diš) sipa anšesi2-si2		3 for the horse herders
	15. 2(u) la2 2(diš-tenû) muḫaldim ki        ur-nigargar		20 minus 2 cooks with Ur-Nigar
	16. 2(u) la2 2(diš-tenû) muḫaldim ki        ur-dnanše		20 minus 2 cooks with Ur-Nanše
	17. 5(diš) e2-lunga ki lugal-an-na-tum		5 for the brewery with Lugal-annatum
	18. 2(diš) e2-lunga ki ur-mes		2 for the brewery with Ur-Mes
	19. 1(diš) e2 ur-dnammu		1 for the Ur-Nammu temple
	20. 1(diš) gu2 tul2 sag-da-na		1 at the edge of the Sagdana well
	21. 1(diš) zi3-il2 ki ur-dba-ba6		1 flour-carriers with Ur-Baba
	22. 1(diš) zi3-il2 ki lugal-KA-gi		1 flour-carriers with Lugal-KA-gi
	23. 1(diš) zi3-il2 ki nam-maḫ		1 flour-carriers with Nammaḫ
	24. 2(diš) im-il2		2 clay-carriers
	25. 2(diš) ga2-nun-da tuš-a		2 dwelling at the storehouse
	reverse
	1. 1(diš) dub-sar [geš-kin]-ti		1 for the workshop scribe
	2. 1(diš) dub-sar i3 zu2-lum		1 for the oil-and-date scribe
	3. 1(diš) dub-sar in-bul5-bul5		1 for the chaff scribe
	4. 1(diš) dub-sar ar-za-na		1 for the groats scribe
	5. 1(diš) dub-sar zi3 nig2-ar-ra imgaga3		1 for the flour-groats-and-emmer scribe
	6. 1(diš) dub-sar ku6 nisig		1 for the fish-and-greens scribe
	7. 1(diš) ur-dnin-a-zu		1 for Ur-Ninazu
	8. 1(diš) ur-sa6-ga tuš-tuš?		1 for Ur-saga ...
	9. 1(diš) ki nam-maḫ		1 for Ki-nammaḫ
	10. 1(diš) ur-dba-ba6 gaba-ri?		1 for Ur-Baba, copy?
	11. 1(diš) ka e2-gal		1 at the opening of the palace
	12. 2(diš) ma2 gukkal unuki-še3		2 for the boat (carrying) sheep        (destined) for Uruk
	13. 5(diš) ma2 gešma-nu		5 for the boat (carrying) willow-wood
	14. 1(u) ma2 gi-la2		10 for the boat (carrying) wood        impliments
	15. 1(u) e2 ensi2		10 for the governor's palace
	16. 3(diš) gi-il2 ša3 nibruki		3 for carrying reeds in Nippur
	17. 3(diš) ma2 i3-si-inki		3 for the Isin boat
	18. 7(diš) |ZI&ZI|.ŠE3 ki dsuen		7 ... at the place of the moon-god
	19. 2(u) la2 3(diš-tenû) im-du8-a		20 minus 3 for mud-wall (work)
	20. 1(diš) du2 al-la		1 sick: Alla
	21. 1(diš) du2 lu2-e2-a		1 sick: Lu-Ea
	22. 1(diš) šutug dmes-lam-ta-e3-a		1 in the reed hut of Meslam-ta'e'a
	23. |ŠU+LAGAB| 3(geš2) 8(diš) guruš        gub-ba		Total: 188 workers assigned
	24. 4(diš) iri-ta nu-banda3 igi-zu-bar-ra		4 from the city (under) the overseer        Igizubara
	25. 3(diš) iri-ta la2-ia3 2(diš) nu-banda3        ur-gešgigir		3 from the city; remainder 2 (under) the        overseer Ur-Gigir
	26. u4 3(u) la2 1(diš-tenû)-kam		the 30th day minus 1
	27. iti ezem-dli9-si4		Month, “Lisi-festival” (Girsu month 3)

Commentary

Despite the improvements made from having this copy, some problems remain. In the summary given in line 48, the number provided, 188, is still one shy of the actual total of workers tasked out, 189. The error is due to scribal or, more likely, copyist error. Similarly, a number of expressions remain problematic. For instance, in the Ur III corpus, the term gaba-ri, meaning “(tablet) copy,” is not otherwise attested following a personal name as it does in line 35 of this text.

The section following the second total (lines 49-52) is peculiar (Allred 2008: 17). Normally, the tablets in this group conclude with several la2-ia3 entries, listing the remaining workers from each overseer (nu-banda₃) not assigned a task. Some tablets will also list workers qualified as “having not gone out from the city” (iri-ta nu-e₃), but in most cases this number is not linked to a particular overseer (e.g., ASJ 18, 224 [HSM 6434] and MVN 11, 85, but cf. Fs. Sigrist 17, no. 5). Our tablet, however, has two iri-ta entries (without the nu-e₃), and but a single la₂-ia₃ entry.

The meanings of the terms la₂-ia₃ and iri-ta nu-e₃ are difficult to understand. It is easy to presume that the la₂-ia₃ workers were simply those remaining workers who, for whatever reason, were not assigned to a particular task. For instance, the total workers in Fs. Sigrist 16, no. 3, is 141. From those, 116 were assigned to tasks while 25 others are qualified as la₂-ia₃; presumably these 25 were not assigned tasks that day, but still had to be counted for administrative reasons.

Curiously, though, a number of texts include being sick (du₂ or du₂-ra) among work assignments. For instance, in the above text both Alla and Lu-Ea were qualified as such. If la₂-ia₃ workers represented those remaining workers who were not assigned a task, then why were sick workers not included among them and instead placed among the assigned workers? While the answer remains unclear, one possible solution is to speculate that sick workers were still compensated in some way, while remaining (la₂-ia₃) workers were not (some evidence for this is seen in Heimpel 2009a: 59-63).

More vexing is the case of the workers qualified as iri-ta nu-e₃. As is clear from the above text, the expression iri-ta nu-e₃ cannot simply be a synonym for la₂-ia₃; when added together, the seven workers called iri-ta nu-e₃ along with the two labeled as la₂-ia₃ and the 188 who were given work assignments totals exactly the 197 workers given at the beginning of this text. Nevertheless, it seems certain that the iri-ta nu-e₃ workers, like the la₂-ia₃ workers, were not assigned tasks. Maekawa (1988: 70) suggested that the workers who had not gone from the city were “a kind of reserve labor force” but it is unclear why such a force would be needed.