Position in chronology
JAOS 088, 056ff 6 N-T 662
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P214863.
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — JAOS 088, 056ff 6 N-T 662. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: IM 061721 (National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad, Iraq) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P214863). source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P214863..
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.