Position in chronology
AUCT 2, 229
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P104047.
Transliteration
[x] gu4 niga [x] gu4 u4 2(u) la2 1(disz)-kam ki ab-ba-sa6-ga-ta ur-tur i3-dab5 [iti] ezem-mah mu# en eridu ba-hun
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AUCT 2, 229. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Siegfried H. Horn Museum, Institute of Archaeology, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, USA (P104047) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P104047..
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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.