Position in chronology
MVN 11, W
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 P116259)
Transliteration
5(gesz2) 2(u) 5(disz) ku6 nun 7(asz) 2(barig) 4(ban2) ku6 nig2-ki gur 1(asz) 1(barig) 3(ban2) ku6-sze6 gur a2 gesz-gar-ra ki lu2-nin-szubur-ta ugula ARAD2-mu mu-kux(DU) ur-mes szu ba-ti iti ezem-me-ki-gal2 <u4> 1(u) 5(disz)-<kam> mu si-mu-ru-um lu-lu-bu a-ra2 1(u) la2 1(disz)-kam-asz ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 11, W. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (P116259) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P116259..
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.