Remarks on the “Archive of the Granary” from Nippur

This paper presents a detailed study of a dossier of receipts authorized by Innannu, a prominent figure in the so-called “archive of the granary” from Kassite Nippur, including editions of some previously unpublished texts. Through an analysis of the underlying archival practices and the workflow recorded by these documents, the paper argues that the label “archive of the granary” is misleading, as it suggests that the crops managed by Innannu and his colleagues were stored in a single, central granary in Nippur, whereas they were actually distributed across a network of storage facilities in the rural hinterland. Therefore, while the bookkeeping system was centralized, the storage of agricultural resources was largely decentralized, following an organizational practice known from earlier periods.