Position in chronology
JCS 52, 048 75
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 P145869)
Transliteration
1/3(disz) gin2 1(u) sze ku3-babbar iti diri-ta u4 1(u) 5(disz) zal-la iti sze-sag11-ku5-sze3 gu-u2-gu-ug-ra ba-ba-ka-ka ku3-bi in-na-szum2 nu-szum2 iti nesag-sze3 sze-bi 2(barig) 4(ban2) 5(disz) sila3 ag2-da mu lugal-bi in-pa3 igi na-ba-sa6-sze3 igi munus-am3-sze3 igi a-da-lal3-sze3 iti diri mu en ga-esz ba-<ba>-ka-ka dumu lu2#-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — JCS 52, 048 75. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Arizona State Museum, Tucson, Arizona, USA (P145869) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P145869..
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.