DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18064758
title: Number of Children per Conscripted or Enslaved Adult in Ur III Umma Inspections and Similar Texts

description: Number of Children per Conscripted or Enslaved Adult in Ur III Umma Inspections and Similar Texts

Author: Andrew PottorfDate of Release: December 29, 2025License: CC BY 4.0

 

Recommended Citation

APA Format:

Pottorf, A. (2025). Number of Children per Conscripted or Enslaved Adult in Ur III Umma Inspections and Similar Texts [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18064759  

Chicago Format:

Pottorf, Andrew. “Number of Children per Conscripted or Enslaved Adult in Ur III Umma Inspections and Similar Texts.” Zenodo, December 29, 2025.  https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18064759.

If you use or refer to this dataset, please cite it as above and, when appropriate, also cite Pottorf 2022, 327–38.

 

Abstract / Description

This dataset compiles quantitative and contextual data on conscripted or enslaved people in Ur III administrative texts. The data were assembled from all relevant Umma texts accessible in BDTNS up to early 2025. Each entry includes references to text editions, transliterations, and citations following BDTNS conventions, with occasional simplification for clarity.

Entries record the number of children of conscripted or enslaved adults, organized by the year, provenience, gender, and order of the conscripted or enslaved adult. These data permit the reconstruction of the sizes of families of conscripted or enslaved people, particularly according to gender and order, during the Third Dynasty of Ur.

 

Scope and Methodology

●      Corpus Coverage: All known Ur III Umma inspections and similar texts, with dates and mostly intact, mentioning conscripted or enslaved adults with their children searchable in BDTNS up to early 2025.

●      Transliteration Standards: BDTNS, except where otherwise indicated. All Sumerian words are underlined.

●      Chronology and Dating: Dates (years only) formatted per Pottorf 2022, 14–15.

●      Assumptions: Adults can be identified by notations and familial relationships, and their orders can be inferred in various contexts.

●      Limitations: Some family structures are difficult to identify due to imprecise formatting. The orders of women are often unclear.

●      Uncertainties: Entries marked (?) when interpretation or restoration is uncertain; see dataset comments.

Future versions will include more proveniences.

 

Data Format

●      File Type: CSV (UTF-8, tabular)

●      Primary Fields: Text, BDTNS, CDLI, Year, Line(s), Gender, Order, No. of Children (Uncertain Gender), No. of Daughters, No. of Sons, No. of Total Children, Comment(s).

●      Source Metadata: CDLI and BDTNS identifiers provided where available.

 

Acknowledgements

I thank Adam Anderson for guidance on FAIR-compliant data publication and repository best practices. I am grateful to the British Museum for permission to study and collate the texts cited below.

 

 Introduction

This table includes data regarding the number of children per conscripted or enslaved adult in Ur III Umma inspections and similar texts searched up to early 2025. All citations, dates, proveniences, and transliterations follow BDTNS (citations are sometimes simplified), unless otherwise stated, and all Sumerian is underlined. Abbreviations follow CDLI. Note that dates (years only) are formatted according to Pottorf 2022, 14–15. Adults considered here are identified by their social statuses, also called orders, including citizens, un-il2, and enslaved people (Pottorf 2025). The men were either conscripted citizens or un-il2, and the women were mostly either conscripted un-il2 or enslaved, but their orders are often difficult to identify. Comments or questions can be sent to apottorf21@gmail.com.

Only dated and mostly intact texts with age-bracket notations are included. The use of only dated texts is to ensure that the same families are not counted multiple times, unless they are documented across different years since they could change in size over time. With regard to fathers, these texts must clearly designate citizens and un-il2. For the age-bracket notations, see Pottorf 2022, 180–86, but note that some revisions are made in Pottorf forthcoming. The age-bracket notations that are indicative of potential parents are aš … aga3-us2, aš … nu-banda3 gu4, aš … šeš-tab-ba, ašc, ½c, and šu. Individuals who were ill, deceased, or supporting their parents (Pottorf 2022, 192–94, 196; forthcoming) are counted as potential parents as well if their age brackets can be approximated from context. While there are a few instances of individuals notated only with aš that were conscripted with children, individuals of this age bracket are not generally expected to be conscripted with children (Pottorf 2022, 328 n. 423). Note that indented individuals are not counted because they lack age-bracket notations, unless they were children of adults with these notations, which is a limited phenomenon in the included texts. Family sizes based on the constructions PN1 dumu PN2 or PN1 PN2 dumu PN3-me are not counted, because these constructions are not consistently attested. This also aids in reducing uncertainty about family sizes when there are multiple children. There are several instances in which families are restored based on formatting. These instances are generally structured like these two hypothetical examples of citizen families: (1) ašc PN1 \ diš PN2 [dumu?-ni?] \ ašc PN3 and (2) ašc PN1 \ aš PN2 \ diš PN3 \ [dumu?-ni?-me?] \ ašc PN4. In the first example, PN2 was most likely a son of PN1, and in the second example, PN2 and PN3 were probably sons of PN1. Depending on the extent of the damage, it is possible that there were other sons in these families, but this is considered in every case. These instances are counted like clear examples, though they are cited with (?) without collations or comments.

BM 106132 is dated to Š 42 based on BM 106132 rev. ii 4–5 and CUSAS 39 127 obv. iii 2'–3'. While the dates for CUSAS 39 135; Nisaba 26 17; and YOS 4 232 could be Š 42, the date of AS 6 fits well based on Appendix 1 in Pottorf 2022, 281–322. For the possible dates of RA 73, 115-120 and Santag 6 384, see Pottorf 2022, 281 n. 361 and 336 n. 466.

Nisaba 6 10 is collated (based on a visit to the British Museum) as:  u2-il2 dŠara2 Ki-anki-ta. Nisaba 23 2 rev. i 5–12 and iii 10–27 in BDTNS are numbered as rev. i 5'–12' and iii 10'–27' here. Nisaba 26 17 obv. 18 is collated in Pottorf forthcoming. In YOS 15 115, 0.1.1 5 <sila3> (not following ašc) should be diš 0.0.1 5 <sila3>. The following ½ in obv. iii 9–10 should be the first sign of the names, read as Maš-. 0.1.1 should be diš 0.0.1. 1.0.2, 1.0.3, and 1.0.4 should be aš 1.0.2, aš 1.0.3, and aš 1.0.4, respectively.

Some texts that are omitted due to damage, uncertain dates, lack of age-bracket notations or unusual concentrations of adults without children or children without adults include AAICAB I/1 Ashm. 1911-228; AnOr 7 301; BDTNS 196758; CDLI P406944; P429776; CUSAS 39 140; JCS 52, 12 57; L’uomo 62; Nisaba 6 12, 17; 11 15; 23 47; 24 28; 33 556; OrSP 47-49 483; Princeton 1 556; 2 429; and SAT 2 77, among others. CUSAS 39 131 rev. ii 15 should be similar or identical to Organisation administrative, Diss., T. 6, Talon-Vanderroost 1, 202-210 obv. viii 19. However, CUSAS 39 131 rev. ii 15 is difficult to collate since the first damaged sign could be tug2, meaning that the notation may be aš. As such, this individual is not counted. Nisaba 6 27 rev. iv 7–10 are omitted because they are difficult to reconstruct. Organisation administrative, Diss., T. 6, Talon-Vanderroost 1, 202-210 rev. i 20, vii 37, and 41 are omitted because aš gan2 could be aš ab/ama, meaning they were supporting their parents. Rev. ix 11 is not counted because the notation should probably be aš rather than ašc based on the lack of gan2 and BCT 2 288 rev. iii 17.

 

Bibliography

Pottorf, Andrew Richard. 2022. “Social Stratification in Southern Mesopotamia during the Third Dynasty of Ur (ca. 2100–2000 BCE).” PhD diss., Harvard University.

———. 2025. “un-il2 (‘Menials’) as a Serflike Social Stratum during the Ur III Period.” Pages 83–113 in Beyond Slavery and Freedom in Ancient Mesopotamia. Edited by Vitali Bartash and Andrew Pottorf. JANEH 12.1.

———. Forthcoming. “Caring for the Elderly in Third-Millennium Mesopotamia: Temporary Conscription Exemption during the Ur III Period.” In Aging, Old Age, and Constructions of Old Age in the Ancient Near East. Edited by Alison Acker Gruseke and Carol Meyers. Kasion. Münster: Zaphon.

 

Versioning and Future Updates

●      Version 1 (December 29, 2025): Initial public release.

●      Planned Version 2 will include more proveniences.

●      The most current version will always be available via the Zenodo DOI landing page.

 

Keywords

Mesopotamia • Ur III period • Sumerian • cuneiform • BDTNS • CDLI • family composition

 

Contact

Andrew Pottorf 📧 apottorf21@gmail.com ORCID: 0000-0002-7842-5979