Position in chronology
SACT 1, 039
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P128794.
Transliteration
1(disz) masz-da3 u4 6(disz)-kam ki ab-ba-sa6-ga-ta u2-ta2-mi-szar-ra-am i3-dab5 iti a2-ki-ti mu sza-asz-ru ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — SACT 1, 039. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Amar-Suen y6 — Šašru destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Spurlock Museum, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA (P128794) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P128794..
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.