Position in chronology
JCS 28, 238 03
Not yet translated
This tablet is catalogued with its transliteration and photographed, but no published translation exists yet. Our translation engine works through the untranslated corpus every night, oldest first — this page will update the day its turn comes. If you are a specialist and can read it, we would love your help.
The world it comes from
Hammurabi, the Epic of Gilgamesh, mathematics.
From the same catalogue range (near P466540)
Transliteration
3(ban2) 6(disz) sila3 1(u) 4(disz) x i3#-[nun] 1(ban2) 8(disz) 1/3(disz) sila3 ga-ar3 2(barig) 7(disz) 1/3(disz) sila3 zu2-lum iti udru 3(ban2) 7(disz) 1/2(disz) sila3 i3-nun 2(ban2) ga-ar3 2(barig) 1(ban2) 1(disz) 2/3(disz)# sila3# zu2-lum iti# sze-sag11-ku5 1(ban2)# 7(disz) 1/2(disz) sila3 i3-nun [n] ga-ar3 nu-ur2-i3-li2-szu# szu# ba-an-ti# mu li#-pi2-it#-esz18#-dar# lugal-e en-nin-sun2#-[zi] en nin-[gubalag] uri5#-[ma] masz2-e i3-[pa3]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Early Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1900 BC)) — JCS 28, 238 03. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Lipit-Eštar y1 — Lipit-Eštar became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P466540) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P466540..
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.