Position in chronology
JCS 35, 202 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 P112160)
Transliteration
2(barig) 4(ban2) 1(disz) sila3 [...] 1(asz) 2(barig) 4(ban2) 1(disz) 1/2(disz) sila3 ur5-ra gur ki ur-ab-ba-ta kiszib3 a-tu szusz3 dumu# ur-e2-an-na la2-ia3 mu nanna kar-zi-da e2-a ba-kux(KWU147)-ra mu en nanna masz2#-e i3-pa3-da#? a-tu szusz3 dumu ur-e2-an-na
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — JCS 35, 202 4. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Archaeological Research Collection, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA (P112160) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P112160..
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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.