Position in chronology
SDSU 3
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
A bureaucratic golden age, the Code of Ur-Nammu.
From the same catalogue range (near P249256)
Transliteration
1(gesz2)# 4(u)# 3(disz) eme szinig ki e2-ur2-bi-du10-ta szabra gu4-ke4 szu ba-ti a-sza3 KA da? kiszib3 nimgir-an-ne2 mu i-bi2-suen lugal#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — SDSU 3. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Ibbi-Suen y1 — Ibbi-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: H. M. Briggs Library, South Dakota State University, Brookings, South Dakota, USA (P249256) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P249256..
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.