Position in chronology
HSS 68, 653
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P407936.
Transliteration
4(disz) udu niga 3(disz@t)-kam us2 6(disz) udu niga gu4#-e-us2-sa u4 3(disz)-kam ki ab-ba-sa6-ga-ta na-lu5 i3-dab5 iti ses-da-gu7 mu hu-uh2-nu-ri ba-hul 1(u)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — HSS 68, 653. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (P407936) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P407936..
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.