Basic Metadata
- NaBuCCo ID
- 104
- Name
- Basia
- Siglum according to GMTR 1
- 7.13.2.2
- (Assumed) place of origin
- Uruk
Archive description
Šumu-ukīn/Bēl-zēri/Basia (17 Nbk-7 Nbn), the well-known entrepreneur and rent-farmer, is the chief protagonist of this business archive, which consists of at least forty tablets at Yale, in Princeton, Berlin and elsewhere dating to 17 Nbk-8 Nbn. They primarily document the early decades of his activities before he entered into close contact with Eanna during the last years of Neriglissar and at the beginning of Nabonidus’s reign. Several of the tablets are written in Šumu-ukīn’s home town, Babylon and infrequently his brothers are mentioned. During the reign of Nabonidus, Šumu-ukīn is predominantly documented as a rent farmer and these texts were closely connected to the temple archive. There are no family documents or title deeds for real estate in this archive.
Apart from a few slave sale contracts and related documents, the texts are overwhelmingly debt notes for barley owed to Šumu-ukīn, attesting his gradually expanding agricultural and entrepreneurial activities in the Uruk hinterland. Mostly he worked alone, but occasionally he participated in harrānu partnership ventures.