Position in chronology
Ontario 2, 094
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P209730.
Transliteration
2(u) 5(asz)? 1(barig) sze gur iti 2(disz)-kam 1(asz) 3(barig) 4(ban2) 7(disz) 1/2(disz) sila3 gur ri-[...]-ba sa2-du11 szul-gi 2(barig) [...] nin-lil2-la2 iti sze-sag11-ku5-ta iti nesag-e-sze3 ki ka-guru7-ta kiszib3 asz-a a-lu5-lu5 mu us2-sa szu-suen lugal-e bad3 mar-tu mu-du3 a-lu5-lu5 lu2 lunga [szara2] dumu lugal-nig2-lagar-e
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Ontario 2, 094. 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: Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (P209730) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P209730..
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.