Position in chronology
LB 2360 & LB 0285
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 P388814)
Transliteration
2(u) 7(asz) 1(barig) 6(disz) 1/3(disz) sila3 1(disz) gin2 sze gur lugal KU si-i3-tum nig2-ka9 ak# ur-ba-ba6 dumu ur-i7-edin-na mu us2-sa si-mu-ur4-ru-um lu#-lu#-bu# a#-ra2 [...] 2(u) 7(asz) 1(barig) 6(disz) 1/3(disz) sila3 1(disz) gin2 sze gur lugal KU si-i3-tum nig2-ka9 ak kiszib3 ur-ba-ba6 dumu ur-i7-edin-na mu us2-sa si-mu-ur4-ru-um lu-lu-bu a-ra2 1(u) la2 1(disz)-kam-asz ba-hul [ur]-ba-ba6 [dub]-sar [dumu] ur-i7-edin-[na]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — LB 2360 & LB 0285. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: LB 2360 & LB 0285 (de Liagre Böhl Collection, Netherlands Institute for the Near East, Leiden, Holland) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P388814). source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P388814..
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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.