The Murashu archive: a date-supply contract from Nippur

The explanations distinguish finds, interpretations and open questions. Sources appear at the end of the page.

What the source says

Penn Museum's collection record describes a clay tablet, number CBS5304, 6.3 cm long, 7.5 cm wide and 2.3 cm deep. According to the description it belongs to the "Murashu Archive": a "contract for the supply of dates, written in Akkadian with a summary in Aramaic". The recorded provenience is "Iraq | Nippur", the culture "Akkadian", the period "Achaemenid Period" and the date made "547-331 BCE". Source 1.

What is on the tablet

A further line of the description details the tablet itself: a seal impression "on UE", Aramaic incised on the reverse and on "LE", and line counts recorded as "(Obverse)13x(LoE)2x(Reverse) 9 lines". The record does not expand these abbreviations. The tablet thus carries three kinds of marks - the Akkadian text, the Aramaic summary and a seal impression - but the record gives neither the content of the contract nor the names of the parties or of the seal's owner. Source 1.

A business house's archive

The record itself does not explain what the Murashu archive was. Its bibliography cites an 1898 publication by Hilprecht and Clay titled "Business Documents of Murashu Sons of Nippur Dated in the Reign of Artaxerxes I (464-424 B.C.)", that is, business documents of "Murashu Sons" of Nippur from the reign of Artaxerxes I; the tablet appears there as number 66a in volume 9. This points to a family or a business house, but the archive's size, history and findspot within Nippur have to be checked in the publication, not in the record. Source 1.

Dating

The range "547-331 BCE" coincides with the period name in the record, so it appears to be the museum's range for the Achaemenid period rather than a date for this contract. The title of the publication dates the documents of its volume to the reign of Artaxerxes I, 464-424 B.C., but the record itself does not narrow the tablet's date. The Met's timeline starts Persian rule in Mesopotamia ca. 539 B.C., so Penn Museum's start, 547, precedes the site's Achaemenid page by eight years; the tablet is placed in the Achaemenid period because the record names it. Sources 1, 2.

What can and cannot be said

One document is not an archive. The tablet shows that at Nippur, in the period the museum calls Achaemenid, a business contract was written in two languages and bears a seal impression; it does not show how many documents the archive held, who the parties were or how many dates were supplied. Nor does the record give an excavation history: the credit line reads "Gift of H. V. Hilprecht, pre 1910". According to the record, the tablet is on display in the museum's Eastern Mediterranean Gallery. Source 1.

Scope of reading: Penn Museum's collection record was read on 24 October 2026, together with the Met timeline page for 1000 B.C.-1 A.D. The 1898 publication by Hilprecht and Clay, the other book in the bibliography and other documents of the archive were not read, so there is no transliteration, translation or excavation context here.