Steven Garfinkle contributes to book containing translations of ancient cuneiform tablets

Steven Garfinkle, an associate professor of history at Western Washington University, contributed to a book set to be published this year about a collection of cuneiform tablets from the Columbia University library .

The book, "Ur III Tablets in the Columbia University Libraries," includes transliterations of all the cuneiform tablets. The documents are all administrative records from the 21st century B.C., most of them from the city of Girsu, part of a province called Lagash in Sumer. According to an interview with Columbia University's Marc Van De Mieroop, who worked with Garfinkle on the project, the texts "deal with the labor being provided by individuals, amounts of bricks that are produced, animals that are being transferred from one part of the organization to another part of the organization. So, these are all documents of daily practice."

To read the interview with Van De Mieroop, visit http://archive.archaeology.org/online/interviews/vandemieroop/.

"Ur III Tablets in the Columbia University Libraries"