The Third Dynasty of Ur lasted for nearly a century (2112-2004 B.C). Five Sumerian kings ruled this dynasty and their reigns witnessed prosperity in all aspects of life; political, administrative, economic, architectural, artistry and literary.

Thousands of Ur III cuneiform texts were scattered in several museums and private collections over the world, all of them came out of illegal excavations that had been done in several Mesopotamian cities and sites such as Lagash (Tel Al-Hiba), Umma (Jokha) and PuzriŒ-^d.Dagan (Drehem). The Iraq Museum also contains some of Ur III cuneiform texts that came from scientific excavations; the rest of these texts had been part of an unknown digging.

This study is based on some Ur III unpublished texts. The texts were confiscated in the beginning of this century, bearing a female name called "Ša-at-eš-tár".

The aim of this study is to collect the archive of this person and to know her position in the administrative and economic situation in Sumer.

The primary study of these texts that have been chosen from the Iraq Museum and other published texts raise several questions about Ša-at-eš-tár, i.e., who is Ša-at-eš-tár, what position did she play and where? What was her position, and in what kind of business did she participate? In which year of king’s rule did she precisely appear? In terms of geography, why did she appear in a certain location without the other during the Ur III period?

In conclusion, I will attempt to understand the relationship of Ša-at-eš-tár with other characters appearing in Iraq Museum texts and other publication texts, e,g. Loding, D., Economic Texts from the Third Dynasty of Ur, UET IX 1976, David, I.O., A. Rudolf, H.M., The GarŠana Archives, CUSAS 3, Maryland 2008.

In addition , these questions should be answered after studying the published and unpublished texts from the Ša-at-eš-tár archive.

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum