Position in chronology
UET 3, 0637
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 P136959)
Transliteration
2(disz) gin2 la2 4(disz) sze ku3-sig17 husz-a na-bi2-hu-um igi-4(disz)-gal2-ta 8(disz)-sze3 2/3(disz) 2(disz) sze ku3-sig17 husz-a mud3 8(disz)-sze3 1(disz) gin2 la2 8(disz) sze ku3-sig17 si-sa2 na-bi2-hu-um igi 6(disz)-gal2-ta 6(disz)-sze3 2(disz) gin2 2/3(disz) la2 8(disz) sze ku3-sig17 si-sa2 2(disz) gug gid2-da ga2-ga2-de3 u3 sze-er-hu-num2 5(disz) sze-ta ki ARAD2-nanna-ta a-hu-wa-qar szu ba-ti iti ezem-me-ki-gal2 u4 1(u) 6(disz) ba-zal mu i-bi2-suen lugal uri5-ma-ra nanna-a sza3 ki-ag2-ga2-ni dalla mu-un-na-an-e3-a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — UET 3, 0637. 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: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P136959) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P136959..
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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.