A number of texts mention the word
uttatu, which Assyriologists translate as "barley," partly on the basis of two Aramaic dockets of the sixth and fifth centuries where this word is equivalent to srn, "barley." The editor accepts this translation for the texts of the sixth and fifth centuries, but assumes that when the letters under consideration were composed it meant "wheat," since all the Semitic cognates of
uttatu mean "wheat." Thus, he contends that only in the late seventh and sixth centuries, after increasing salinization of the soil, barley became the dominant crop and
uttatu "its signifier" (p.
