Housing Data in Ur III Texts

Housing Data in Ur III Texts

Author: Andrew PottorfDate of Release: November 9, 2025License: CC BY 4.0

Recommended Citation

APA Format:

Pottorf, A. (2025). Housing Data in Ur III Texts [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17563926

Chicago Format:

Pottorf, Andrew. “Housing Data in Ur III Texts.” Zenodo, November 9, 2025.  https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17563926.

If you use or refer to this dataset, please cite it as above and, when appropriate, also cite:

●      Pottorf 2022 (PhD dissertation).

Abstract / Description

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

Entries record house sizes in sar (≈ 35 m2) and silver prices in gin2 (≈ 8.33 g) per sar, organized by occupation of the individual owner, including buyer or seller, where identifiable. These data permit the reconstruction of housing conditions, particularly the disparity of sizes according to occupations, during the Third Dynasty of Ur.

Scope and Methodology

●      Corpus Coverage: All known Ur III Umma cuneiform sources mentioning house sizes searchable in BDTNS up to early 2025.

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

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

●      Measurement Units: House sizes = sar (≈ 35 m2) and house prices in silver = gin2 (≈ 8.33 g) per sar.

●      Assumptions: Prices of commodities, such as barley, oil, and wool, in other texts can be applied texts with housing data.

●      Limitations: Social data, such as whether a house owner was a citizen or UN-il2 (see Pottorf 2022), are difficult to reconstruct based on limited information.

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

Future versions may include house descriptions and neighborhoods in addition to social data.

Data Format

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

●      Primary Fields:  Text, Date, Provenience, Line(s), Occupation(s) (Sumerian), Occupation(s) (English), Size (in sar), Silver Price (in gin2/sar), Occupation (Sumerian), Occupation (English), 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.

Introduction

This table includes data regarding housing in all relevant Ur III 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. Note that dates are formatted according to Pottorf 2022, 14–15. Abbreviations follow CDLI. These data relate to house sizes and silver prices according to occupation—when possible, it is stated whether the occupation is that of the buyer or seller. Sizes are measured in sar (ca. 35 m2), and silver prices are measured in gin2 (ca. 8.33 g) of silver per sar. Only lines including sizes and prices are included. Texts referring to the same house are included, but only the data of the first attestation are provided. Comments or questions can be sent to [e-mail].

            Houses are often purchased with only silver, but other commodities can be included. When other commodities are utilized, their equivalences to silver are as follows (note that 1 ma-na is ca. 0.5 kg and 1 sila3 is ca. 1 L):

Barley: 300 sila3 = 1 gin2 (see Cripps 2017).

Oil: 12 sila3 = 1 gin2 (see Nisaba 26 23 rev. 4–5).

Wool: 10 ma-na = 1 gin2 (see Cripps 2019).

The following texts are omitted for various reasons, including damage: AOS 32 Noor 2; ASJ 19, 290 14; AuOr 40, 258 9; Babyl. 3, pl. 4 12; CUSAS 39 197; Fs. Pettinato, 182 1, 184 5; ITT 2 920; 1038; 3 5262+ITT 5 6729; 3 6463; 6566; 5 6724+6730; 6837; 6844; 6846; JCS SS 5 72, 76, 108, 121, 128; NATN 782; 966; Nik. 2 147; NRVN 1 3; 222; 231; RevSem 11, 181 5; RIAA 86; Sale Documents 75; Syracuse 479 obv. 5–6, 11 (Steinkeller 2013); TCS 1 310; TIM 5 8; TUT 125; TUT 164-14 (see rev. i 17 according to CDLI); UET 3 31; 705; 9 389; and ZA 53, 56 5.

Bibliography

Cripps, Eric L. 2017. “The Structure of Prices in the Neo-Sumerian Economy (I): Barley:Silver Price Ratios.” Cuneiform Digital Library Journal 2017:2. https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/articles/cdlj/2017-2.

———. 2019. “The Structure of Prices in the Neo-Sumerian Economy (II). The Wool:Silver Price Ratio.” RA 113:13–38.

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

Robson, Eleanor. 1999. Mesopotamian Mathematics, 2100–1600 BC: Technical Constants in Bureaucracy and Education. OECT 14. Oxford: Clarendon.

Steinkeller, Piotr. 1989. Sale Documents of the Ur-III-Period. FAOS 17. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden.

———. 2013. “Residence Patterns and Population Density in the City of Umma at ca. 2,000 BC.” Paper presented at Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza.” Rome, 10 May.

Versioning and Future Updates

●      Version 1 (November 9, 2025): Initial public release.

●      Planned Version 2 will include house descriptions and neighborhoods in addition to possible social data.

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

Keywords

Mesopotamia • Ur III period • Sumerian • cuneiform • BDTNS • CDLI • housing • prices

Contact

Andrew Pottorf 📧 [e-mail] ORCID: 0000-0002-7842-5979