Position in chronology
CDLB 2016/001, §2.3.3
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 P392641)
Transliteration
3(u) udu niga 5/6(disz) sila3 sze-ta 2(ban2)# 4(disz) sila3 duh u4# 3(u)-sze3 szunigin sze-bi 2(asz) 2(barig) 3(ban2) gur szunigin duh-bi 2(asz) 2(barig) gur ki inim-szara2 sza3 umma giri3 a-lu5-lu5 iti sze-sag11-ku5 mu us2-sa en-mah#-gal-an-na ba-hun
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLB 2016/001, §2.3.3. 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 (P392641) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P392641..
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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.