Nonadministrative Documents from Archaic Ur and from Early Dynastic I–II Mesopotamia: A New Textual and Archaeological Analysis

Abstract

The present paper addresses a subgroup of cuneiform documents from the so-called Archaic Texts from Ur in Mesopotamia. The documents in this subgroup can be isolated within the bulk of the Archaic Texts due to their nonadministrative content. A fresh textual analysis of this dataset is combined with a discussion of the archaeological context of their provenance to highlight patterns in early Ur scribal training methods. The results of this integrated analysis are used to frame more precisely the significance of “Archaic Ur” scribal traditions, dating to the first part of the Early Dynastic period, within the cultural transition from the Late Uruk to the Early Dynastic III (“Fāra”) period in Mesopotamia.