Position in chronology
ZVO 25, 134 2
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 P142619)
Transliteration
1(disz) udu niga 1(disz) sila4 niga 2(disz) gukkal niga# 5(disz) gukkal 1(disz) masz2 ga e2-muhaldim ki-a-nag szul-gi-ra-sze3 1(disz) udu niga 1(disz) gukkal ki-a-nag geme2-nin-lil2-la2 1(disz) gukkal ki-a-nag szul-gi-si2-im-ti na-ra-am-i3-li2 maszkim iti u4 2(u) 8(disz) ba-zal ki na-lu5-ta ba-zi sza3 uri5-ma iti u5-bi2-gu7 mu amar-suen lugal
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — ZVO 25, 134 2. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Amar-Suen y1 — Amar-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (P142619) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P142619..
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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.