Position in chronology
AAICAB 1/3, pl. 198, Bod A 85
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 P131057)
Transliteration
2(u) 1(disz) gu4 niga 1(disz) ab2 niga 2(disz) udu a-lum 1(disz) sila4 a-lum u4 1(u) 7(disz)-kam ki ab-ba-sa6-ga-ta szu-ma-ma i3-dab5 iti ezem-mah mu hu-uh2-nu-ri ba-hul 2(u) 2(disz) gu4 3(disz) udu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AAICAB 1/3, pl. 198, Bod A 85. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P131057) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P131057..
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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.