On the Road, and Home Again

State employees whose jobs required them to travel were entitled to eat at the inns which were maintained at way stations on the Ur III state's road system. Tablets served as vouchers for food and drink at such inns. Maybe these tablets were made so small because couriers had to carry many of them at a time.

At the end of every month, the vouchers redeemed at each way station were collected in a sack, the quantities of food and drink recorded on them were totaled up, and the sack was labeled with a clay tag. The totals from the vouchers in the sack were written on the clay tag, and two officials sealed it with their cylinder seals.

A courier took the sealed bag of clay tablets back to the administrative office at the provincial capital where the records were stored. Tablets were sometimes stored in baskets, which were labeled with clay labels identifying their contents