Position in chronology
KM 89308
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P235055.
Transliteration
[... ku3]-babbar ki-[la2]-bi# 1(u) gin2 1(disz) tu#-di-da ku3-babbar ki-la2-bi# 2(disz) 2/3(disz) gin2 4(disz)? tu-di-da zabar [ki]-la2-bi 1(u) gin2 mu-kux(DU) nin-ge6-par4-ka mu szu-suen lugal uri5-ma-ke4 bad3 mar-tu mu-ri-iq-ti-id-ni-im mu-du3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — KM 89308. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šu-Suen y1 — Šu-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA (P235055) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P235055..
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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.