Position in chronology
UCP 10-01, 012
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 P248059)
Transliteration
6(disz) kusz udu-nita2 _sza_ mu-tum2 sza3 1(disz) kusz bar-su3-a 7(disz) kusz udu-nita2 1(disz) kusz udu _szi-ni-a-nu_ 1(u) 4(disz) kusz udu-nita2 1(u) 2(disz) kusz ur4 1(disz) kusz _szi-ni-an-tum_ 1(disz) kusz ur4 bar-su3-a 2(disz) kusz _szi-ni-an#-tum_ 3(disz) kusz _bar-ba-ru-u2_ 1(u) 7(disz) kusz ur4 szunigin 3(u) 1(disz) kusz udu hi-a na-gada nu-ri-ia iti _e-lu-nu_ u4 1(disz)-kam mu sahar _zi-ku-ra-tum_ utu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Early Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1900 BC)) — UCP 10-01, 012. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA (P248059) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P248059..
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.