Position in chronology
MVN 02, 223
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 P113522)
Transliteration
2(disz) sila3 kasz 2(disz) sila3 ninda 1(disz) id-gur2 i3 sza3-iri 1(disz) kasz dida 5(disz) sila3 dabin kaskal-sze3 puzur4-en-lil2-la2 lu2 tukul a-dam-szah2-sze3 du-ni [1(ban2)] 5(disz) sila3 kasz 1(ban2) 5(disz) sila3 ninda 1/3(disz) sila3 i3-gesz elam sa-bu-um-me u3-na-a-du11 sukkal-mah-ta sa-bu-um-sze3 du-<ni> iti mu-szu-du7 u4 5(disz) ba-zal
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 02, 223. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva, Switzerland (P113522) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P113522..
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.