Position in chronology
Nik 1, 187
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P221956.
Transliteration
1(u@c) masz gal-gal masz asza5-ga e3-a GAN2 uri3 ru2-a-kam en-ig-gal nu-banda3 iti ezem-[li9-si4]-na-ka [za3] bi2-szu4 ur-gesz-bar-e3 sipa masz-[ke4] ba-gar masz u2-rum bara2-nam-tar-ra dam lugal-an-da ensi2 lagasz-ka 3(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 187. 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 (P221956) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P221956..
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.