Seal of expert accountant Uballissu-Marduk, from in the British Museum.[i 1]
Oh, Ninsumun, mighty lady,
eldest daughter of the great An,
chief land registrar of Enlil,
whose wisdom makes everything perfect:
may he who seeks you rejoice,
and may his going be well,
<so that> after he passed by, the land is well ordered.
Uballissu-Marduk,
son of Arad-Ea,
expert accountant,
servant of Kurigalzu, king of the world.[1]
Uballissu-Marduk, inscribed ú-ba-lí-su-dAMAR.UTU, meaning “Marduk has kept him alive,” was a Babylonian accountant (niğkas) who rose to the rank of administrator (sanqu) in the Kassite government of Kurigalzu II, ca. 1332-1308 BC short chronology, whose principal sources are his two cylinder seals which detail his religious affiliations and his illustrious genealogy.[2]
Biography
The earlier of his seals (pictured) is a chalcedony cylinder seal with eleven lines of text and one line of five insects. It provides a prayer to the goddess Ninsun and gives his position as “expert accountant.” His other cylinder seal,[i 2] lists four generations of his ancestors of which Arad-Ea “scholar of accounting” (Sumerian: ummia niğkas) is the first. His father, Uššur-ana-Marduk, had been gá-dub-ba é-[kur?], governor of Nippur, his grandfather, Usi-ana-nuri-?, GIR3.NITA2kurdilmunki-a, “regent” or “viceroy” of Dilmun, ancient Bahrain.[3]
His brother was Ile’’e-bulṭa-Marduk, a temple administrator of the Marduk temple in Babylon, as recorded on a copy of a recipe for glass,[i 3] the original apparently dated to the “Year after that in which Gulkišar became king,” presumed to either refer to the original recipe, or perhaps a fanciful archaism for the tablet.
There seems to have been a rift in the family, with his cousin, Marduk-nādin-aḫḫē, moving to Aššur to take up an appointment as royal scribe to the Assyrian king, Aššūr-uballiṭ (ca. 1353 BC – 1318 BC), as a copy of his obsequious memorial inscription[i 4] recalls “[some]one can set [stra]ight [the kinsmen] and clans of my ancestors that have embraced [tre]achery.” Wiggerman suggests that the cause of the division may have been the divided loyalties surrounding the overthrow of Kara-ḫardaš, the son and successor of Burna-Buriaš II, who had been Aššūr-uballiṭ’s grandson or son-in-law. This would have placed Marduk-nādin-aḫḫē’s branch of the family firmly on the side of the Assyrian military intervention, while that of Uballissu-Marduk’s perhaps sided with the usurper Nazi-Bugaš and certainly with Kurigalzu II, an Assyrian-appointee who eventually came to conflict with his erstwhile benefactors, probably riding a wave of public sentiment against their northern neighbors.[1]
Uballissu-Marduk’s descendants were recorded in the genealogy of Marduk-zâkir-šumi, the bēl pīḫati, “person responsible” or provincial governor, who was the beneficiary of a royal gift of corn-land on a kudurru[i 5] in the time of Marduk-apla-iddina I, ca. 1171–1159 BC. These give Rimeni-Marduk as Uballissu-Marduk’s son, Nabû-nādin-aḫē, his grandson, and Marduk-zâkir-šumi, his great-grandson.[4]
^ abF. A. M. Wiggerman (2008). "A Babylonian Scholar in Assur". In R.J. van der Spek (ed.). In Studies in Ancient Near Eastern World View and Society Presented to Marten Stol on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. CDL Press. pp. 203–234.
^Eleanor Robson (2008). Mathematics in Ancient Iraq: A Social History. Princeton University Press. p. 175.
^J. A. Brinkman (1993). "A Kassite Seal Mentioning a Babylonian Governor of Dilmun". NABU (106).
