Position in chronology
MVN 13, 218
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P116990.
Transliteration
[n] 1(ban2) sze-ba ur-nin-su muhaldim kiszib3 lu2-u18 iti min3-esz3 mu us2-sa szu-suen lugal uri5-ma-ke4 bad3 mar-tu mu-ri-iq-<ti>-id:ni-im mu-du3 lu2-u18 dumu bi2-du11 muhaldim
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 13, 218. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šu-Suen y2 — Year after: Šu-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P116990) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P116990..
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.