Position in chronology
MVN 08, 018
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 P115409)
Transliteration
1(disz) sila4 szar-ru-um-i3-li2# 1(disz) sila4 u2-u2-mu 4(disz) udu niga 2(disz) sila4 ad-da-tur 1(disz) sila4 du-du 1(disz) sila4 a2-bi2-la-tum# 2(disz) masz2-gal niga 1(disz) sila4 en-lil2-la2-i3-sa6# 1(disz) sila4 en inanna 2(disz) sila4 zabar-dab5 mu-kux(DU) na-sa6 i3-dab5 iti a2-ki-ti mu us2-sa ki-masz ba-hul mu us2-sa-bi u4 8(disz)#?-kam#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 08, 018. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: College de France, Paris, France (P115409) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P115409..
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.