The Reconstruction Of The Archive Of (?)ulgi-urumu, The Kitechen Official(Muhaldim) On Dead Animals Of The Tribute Animal Center Of Ur-Ⅲ Dynasty (as 3 Iv-IS 2 Xii)

A large animal tribute center by the name of the Office of Puzri(s|ˇ)-Dagan, which is now the Drehem site in Iraq, was built by the second term king (S|ˇ)ulgi of Ur III dynasty at his 38th year's dominance. The reason for establishing this animal center was that the Ur III dynasty royal family, court officials, the governors and nobles of the cities needed an office to manage their animal sacrifices, which were frequently offered to the deities in Nippur, Uruk and Ur. Simultaneously the palace and the officials of the royal court as well as the soldier also needed the massive domestic animals as foods. The receiving and withdrawals of the large amount of animals required the special accounting office. (?)-Puzri(s|ˇ)-Dagan, which was near to the religious center of Nippur and Tummal, therefore was elected as the place of the Royal Animal Center. The Office of Puzri?-Dagan was the famous animal managing center in ancient Mesopotamia, also it occupied a very important place in the economy of Ur III dynasty.The work in this paper is to reconstruct the documents of (S|ˇ)ulgi-urumu, who was the cook and the kitchen warehouse official of the tribute animal center. The 653 texts of the archives of (S|ˇ)ulgi-urumu on dead animals are presented by us in this part. The texts of the archive of (S|ˇ)ulgi-urumu are listed according to the chronological order, and presented in three languages: 1) Sumerian transliterations, 2) English translations, and 3) Chinese translations. From the archive, we learn that the career of (S|ˇ)ulgi-urumu lasted from the 4th month of the 3rd year of Amar-Sin to the 12th month of the 2nd year of Ibbi-Sin, altogether 18 years. According to the primitive literature analysis, we know that he was a cook (muhaldim) of the royal kitchen so we judge that (S|ˇ)ulgi-urumu was the kitchen warehouse official of the tribute Animal Center, who might slaughter the eliminated animals from sacrifices and was in charge of processing the meat, skin and other parts of animal corpses.In this paper, we have also analyzed his economic activity. Among (S|ˇ)ulgi-urumu's work colleagues of the Animal Center, we see the dead domestic animal mainly to come from three channels: the central manager, the temporary cow sheepfold manager, the tribute domestic animal ships the official. The corpses of dead animals processed by (S|ˇ)ulgi-urumu were possibly used as the food of slaves and the leather materials for the tanner and other craftsmen.