Position in chronology
CDLB 2016/001, §2.2.4
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 P392642)
Transliteration
3(disz) gukkal babbar2 1(disz) gukkal gesz-du3 babbar2 3(disz) gukkal 2(disz) |U8+HUL2| 7(disz) udu 1(disz) sila4 1(disz) masz2 1(disz) ud5 u4 1(u)-kam ki ab-ba-sa6-ga-ta szul-gi-a-a-mu i3-dab5 iti u5-bi2-gu7 mu amar-suen lugal-e ur-bi2-lum mu-hul 2(u) la2 1(disz@t)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLB 2016/001, §2.2.4. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Amar-Suen y2 — Urbilum destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Los Angeles Unified School District, Los Angeles, California, USA (P392642) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P392642..
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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.