Position in chronology
AS 16, 199-209
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.
Transliteration
4(asz) gu2 siki gu2 udu 2(asz) gig gur 2(asz) sze gesz-i3 ki lu2-ma2-a-a ha-tin-i-ba-nu-um# dumu ap-ka-lu-um kaskal silim-ma-bi ti#-bi-ib-ta-am lu2-ma2-a-a-ra in-na-an-szum2 mu lugal-bi in-pa3 igi ur-szul-pa-e3 masz2#-szu-gid2-gid2 [igi e]-ri#-isz-ti-i3-li2 ugula szu-ku6 iti gu4-si-sa2 u4 2(u)-kam mu szu-nir gal min-a-bi e2 nanna-sze3 i-ni-in-[ku4-re]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Early Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1900 BC)) — AS 16, 199-209. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Yale Babylonian Collection, New Haven, Connecticut, USA (P306518) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P306518..
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.