Position in chronology
ARET 03, 213
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P242405.
Transliteration
[N TUG2-NI]-NI [n] _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| dar tug2_ GISZ-DUG-DU ra-'a3-ag [...] [x]-x-zi-kir _lu2 kar_ 2(asz@c) 'a3-da-um 2(asz@c@90) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| dar tug2_ a-a-isz#?-ru12#? [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 213. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: National Museum of Syria, Idlib, Syria (P242405) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P242405..
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.