Position in chronology
Aleppo 254
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P100586.
Transliteration
1(disz) gurusz u4 4(u) 5(disz)-sze3 guru7 uri5 tusz-a mu ur-bi2-lum ba-hul 1(disz) sag-ku5 dam-gar3 u4 5(u) 5(disz)-sze3 ugula a-a-gi-na mu us2-sa lu-lu-bum2 si-mu-ru-um a-ra2 1(u) la2 1(disz@t)-kam ba-hul kiszib3 la-ni muhaldim la!-ni dub#-[sar] [dumu ur-nigar]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Aleppo 254. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: National Museum of Syria, Aleppo, Syria (P100586) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P100586..
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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.