Position in chronology
Hermitage 3, 001
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P211829.
Transliteration
4(asz) gu2 siki-gi mu-kux(DU) sza3 uri5-ma-sze3 giri3 da-da-a da-da-a dumu e2-gal-ke4 szu ba-ti iti dumu-zi mu lugal-ba-gara2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Lagash II (ca. 2200-2100 BC)) — Hermitage 3, 001. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (P211829) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P211829..
Related tablets
Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.