Position in chronology
NM 44.0016
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P212412.
Transliteration
_3(u@c) zi3#? [x x? gur]_ _1(asz@c) 2(barig@c) zi3# A gur_ _1(u@c) 2(asz@c) u3 gal#_ _6(asz@c)#? u3 tur_ _8(asz@c) u3-suh5_ u-ba-ra#?-u3 _4(gesz2) bar-si_ _1(u@c) 2(asz@c) ma-x_ _2(u@c) la2 2(asz@c) siki si4_ szu-ut _ma2-gur8_ u3 NI-NI isz-te4 du11-ga-me?-AN-til-la-bi3 dumu nin# ur-e-ga
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — NM 44.0016. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia (P212412) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P212412..
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.