Since the late 1990s, hundreds of Sargonic texts from illicit diggings have appeared on the antiquities market (Westenholz 2010). References to governors (ensi2) of Adab, the Adab calendar, prosopography, onomastic elements, divine names, and cultic places characteristic of Adab as well as grammatical elements such as the use of the verbal prefix e- suggest that a large number of these texts comes from Adab directly. These thus currently provide the largest corpus of Sargonic texts (Schrakamp 2008: 665-669; Schrakamp 2013: 201, note 3; Molina 2014: 24-27).
In his edition of Sargonic texts from Adab in the Real Academia de la Historia Madrid, Molina (2014: 25) supposed that a lot of twenty one Sargonic tablets stem from Adab as well. These had been offered for sale by the Royal Athena Galleries in 1998 and on eBay in 2005. They include the four-line tablet, which deals with military equipment and excerpts entries from Molina 2014: nos. 157-158. The tablet reads:
| transliteration | translation | |
|---|---|---|
| Obverse | ||
| 1 | [35 g̃eš-gid2-da] ⌜gibil⌝ | 35 new lances |
| 2 | 31 g̃eš-gid2-da libir | 31 old lances |
| 3 | 42 SAG̃ŠU(SAG̃.U) ⌜gibil⌝ | 42 new helmets |
| 4 | 80! SAG̃ŠU(SAG̃.U) libir | 80! old helmets |
Obv. 1-2 correspond to ⌜30⌝ + 5 g̃eš-gid2-da, g̃eš gibil, 31 g̃eš-gid2-da, g̃eš libir-am3 in Molina 2014: no. 157 obv. 1-4 and 35 geš-gid2-da, 31 g̃eš libir in Molina 2014: no. 158 rev. 4-5. g̃eš either is a shorthand writing for g̃eš-gid2-da or refers to the wooden shafts (Molina 2014: 142). obv. 3 parallels 42 SAG̃ŠU uruda gibil in Molina 2014: no. 158 obv. 4. The 80! SAG̃ŠU libir in obv. 4 correspond to the total of 75 SAG̃ŠU uruda, SAG̃ŠU uruda libir and 5 SAG̃ŠU uruda libir in Molina 2014: no. 158 obv. 1-2 and obv. 5. The provenience of P274878 from Adab is thus certain.
That “most (if not all)” of the 21 Royal Athena Galleries tablets come from Adab, as Molina (2014: 25) suggested, is further supported, for example, by the verbal form e-na-šum2 in P274888, with an e-prefix diagnostic for Middle Sargonic texts from Adab (Schrakamp 2008: 666-667; Molina 2014: 26-27), and the co-occurrence of e2-maḫ, gala, the ugula gala, and ur-a2 (see Molina 2014: 142, 189) in P274873, who also co-occur as workers and foremen in TCBI 1, 83, Molina 2014: no. 255 and Molina 2014: no. 288.
| Molina, Manuel | ||
| 2014 | Sargonic Cuneiform Tablets in the Real Academia de la Historia. The Carl L. Lippmann Collection. Real Academia de la Historia. Comisión de Antigüedades: Madrid. | |
| Schrakamp, Ingo | ||
| 2008 | “Review of F. Pomponio, G. Visicato, and Aa. Westenholz: Le tavolette cuneiformi di Adab. Le tavolette cuneiformi di varia provenienzia (Le tavolette cuneiformi delle collezioni della Banca d'Italia, volume 1 and 2). Rome: Banca d'Italia, 2006”. BiOr 65:661-711. | |
| 2013 | “Review of G. Visicato and Aa. Westenholz, Early Dynastic and Early Sargonic Tablets from Adab in the Cornell University Collections, CUSAS 11, Bethesda: CDL Press, 2010”. JCS 65:201-228. | |
| Westenholz, Aage | ||
| 2010 | “What's New in Town?”. In: S. C. Melville and A. L. Slotsky (ed.) Opening the Tablet Box. Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Benjamin R. Foster (CHANE 42; Brill, Styx: Leiden & Boston):453-462. | |