Position in chronology
MVN 15, 323
Not yet translated
This tablet is catalogued with its transliteration, 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 P118588)
Transliteration
4(disz) gu4 niga ezem ma2-an-na unu-sze3 iti u4 2(u) 2(disz) ba-zal ki a-hu-ni-ta na-sa6 i3-dab5 iti ezem-szul-gi mu us2-sa ki-masz u3 hu-ur5-ti ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 15, 323. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: SI 303287 (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA) — from Puzriš-Dagan (mod. Drehem) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P118588). source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P118588..
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.