Position in chronology
Fs Milano 339-340 02
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 P479900)
Transliteration
4(u)# 9(disz) gurusz 6(disz) gin2 i3-szah2-ta? i3-szah2-bi 4(disz) 5/6(disz) sila3 4(disz) gin2 i3-ba ug3-IL2-e-ne szu ba-ti ugula x-szu?-da iti sze-sag11-ku5 mu# hu#-uh2#-[nu]-ri ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Fs Milano 339-340 02. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Anonymous 479900 (private: anonymous, unlocated) — from Irisagrig (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P479900). source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P479900..
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.