Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 1166
Not yet translated
This tablet is catalogued with its transliteration, 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 P323223)
Transliteration
3(ban2) dabin 2(ban2) esza zu2-lum esza hi-de3 ur-nin-su4-an-na maszkim iti ezem-nin-a-zu mu ma2-gur8-mah ba-ab-du8 szu-kab-ta2 a-zu dumu na-ra-am-i3-li2 ur-su4-an-na sagi ARAD2-zu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 1166. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CUNES 49-01-002 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P323223). source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P323223..
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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.
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