Position in chronology
MVN 03, 213
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 P113773)
Transliteration
1(disz) sar e2 ku3-bi 1(disz) gin2 ku3-babbar gi-ba-ba szitim-sze3 i3-kal-la dub-sar in-szi-sa10 igi ur-gigir iszib szul-gi-ka-sze3 igi szesz-a-ni simug-sze3 igi ku3-sa6-ga ku3-dim2-sze3 igi ur-nigar szitim-sze3 igi szesz-kal-la szitim-sze3 ku3-ta i3-til u4-ba ur-li9-si4 ensi2 umma mu us2-sa si-mu-ru-um lu-lu-bu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 03, 213. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P113773) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P113773..
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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.