Position in chronology
Akkadica 114-115, 098 18
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P145511.
Transliteration
1(u) 6(disz) udu masz2 hi-a giri3 lugal-ezem 4(u) 1(disz) udu masz2 hi-a a-sza3-ta ki sa3-si2-ta ur-mes i3-dab5 giri3 a-la-mu iti ezem-szu-suen mu si-ma-num2 ba-hul ur-mes dumu la-na kuruszda#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Akkadica 114-115, 098 18. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels, Belgium (P145511) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P145511..
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.