Position in chronology
CDLB 2016/001, §2.3.4
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 P392628)
Transliteration
3(u) sa gu nig2-dab5 iti sze-kar-ra#-gal2-la 1(gesz2) sa gu ezem nesag 1(gesz2) sa gu ezem e2-iti-6(disz) 3(u) sa gu ezem pa4-u2-e ki ur-nin-tu-ta kiszib3 lu2-nin-szubur mu# sza#-asz-szu2-ru-um<> a-ra2 2(disz)-kam ba-hul lu2-nin-szubur dub-sar dumu szesz-kal-la szabra
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLB 2016/001, §2.3.4. 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 (P392628) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P392628..
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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.