Position in chronology
CDLI Seals 006346 (physical)
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P226975.
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLI Seals 006346 (physical). No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: AO 22312 (Louvre Museum, Paris, France) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P226975). source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P226975..
Related tablets
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.