Position in chronology
Nik 1, 100
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P221869.
Transliteration
2(gesz2@c) 3(u@c) la2 3(asz@c) sze gur saggal lum-ma-sza3-tam ugula sze? GAN2 sa6-ga tur-ra-ta szubur nu-banda3 mu-na-bala 1(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 100. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (P221869) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P221869..
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.