Position in chronology
AUCT 2, 384
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P104202.
Transliteration
[...] KA [...] babbar2 x [...] zabar# [...] nagar# zabar [...] nagar zabar [...]-ga-ka-zi lu2 ur-bi2-lum mu-kux(DU) giri3 i-gi-ru-mah szagina di-ku5-mi-szar szu ba-ti sza3 uri5-ma iti ezem-nin-a-zu mu us2-sa ki-[masz] u3 hur-ti ba-[hul]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AUCT 2, 384. 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 (P104202) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P104202..
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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.