Position in chronology
BMC Roma 8, 12 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 P107223)
Transliteration
2(gesz2) 2(u) 6(asz) gu2 gig# 2(gesz2) 3(u) gu2 esir2 had2 ki ur-utu-ta 2(u) ma-na siki-gi ki ur-nigar-ta 3(disz) udu 1(disz) masz2 ki ba-sa6-ta kiszib3-bi nu-gal2 mu bad3 ba-du3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — BMC Roma 8, 12 2. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Museo Barracco, Rome, Italy (P107223) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P107223..
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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.