Position in chronology
HSS 10, 031
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P213297.
Transliteration
_2(esze3@c)#? 2(iku@c) 1/4(iku@c) GAN2_ _3(asz@c)#? [...] 1(ban2@c) 5(disz) sila3 sze gur_ _GAN2 sa10_ er3-ra-ra _1(esze3@c) 1(iku@c) GAN2#_ _1(asz@c) 2(barig@c) gig gur_ _1(bur3@c) 1(esze3@c) GAN2_ _3(barig@c) ziz2_ szu ba-x x _1(bur3@c) GAN2_ _3(asz@c) 3(barig@c) sze gur_ szu zi-ra# _szunigin 8(asz@c) 3(barig@c)# [... gur]_ szu-i3-li2#-[su?]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — HSS 10, 031. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (P213297) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P213297..
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.