Position in chronology
CDLB 2016/001, §2.2.3
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 P392632)
Transliteration
[n] 5(disz) x x [...] x-x [...] [...] gu4 4(disz) udu 1(disz)? masz2# x [x] gu3#-de2-a x [...] x [n] gu4 niga 4(disz) [...] x [n] 1(disz) udu 1(disz) x [a?]-kal#-la x [x] [...] x [...] [...] x x ad#-da-kal#-[la] ugula usz-bar [zi]-ga# s,e-lu-usz-da-gan mu#-kux(DU) iti ses-da-gu7 mu ki-masz u3 hu-ur5-ti ba-hul#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLB 2016/001, §2.2.3. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Los Angeles Unified School District, Los Angeles, California, USA (P392632) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P392632..
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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.