Position in chronology
Nik 1, 246
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P222015.
Transliteration
1(asz@c) kusz eme3 |SZUL.GI| mu 2(disz@t) en-ku4 1(asz@c) kusz munus-ama |SZUL.GI| ur-nam2-nun sipa szaganx(AMA)-me en-ig-gal nu-banda3 ganun ba-ba6-ka guru7 i3-dub-ba-a szu-a bi2-gi4 kusz ansze u2-rum ba-ba6 URU-KA-gi-na ensi2 lagasz 1(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 246. 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 (P222015) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P222015..
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.