Position in chronology
MMUM 1980_123
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 P431246)
Transliteration
2(u) la2 2(disz@t) geme2 usz-bar ugula ur-nin-tu 1(u) la2 1(disz@t) geme2 ugula lugal-e2-mah-e 1(u) la2 1(disz@t) geme2 ugula lu2-bala-saga 1(u) 3(disz ) geme2 ugula szara2-za-me gurum2-ak ki-su7 a-sza3 ma-nu iti sig4-i3-szub-ba-ga2-ra mu us2-sa gu#-za
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MMUM 1980_123. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK (P431246) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P431246..
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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.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.