Position in chronology
TCBI 1, 243
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P382495.
Transliteration
2(barig@c)# sze sa2-du11 en-bara2-si# szu-igi-du iti a2-ki-ti-kam [...] x x [e2]-GAN2-ISZ iti sze-sag-sa6-ga
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — TCBI 1, 243. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Banca d'Italia, Rome, Italy (P382495) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P382495..
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.