Position in chronology
MVN 15, 377
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 P118642)
Transliteration
1(u) sze gur kiszib3 ka-tar-ni ma2-lah5# 1(asz) gur kiszib3 ur-gigir dumu a-ri2-bi 1(asz) 1(barig) x gur? zi3 kiszib3 ur-[]lugal-banda3 3(u)# 3(asz)# 3(barig) 5(ban2) gur 2(ban2) ziz2 lugal-ezem szabra 2(u) 5(asz) 2(barig)? 5(ban2) 3(disz) sila3 gur la-ni-mu szunigin 1(u) 1(u) 4(barig) 2(ban2) 5(disz) sila3 sze gur szunigin 1(barig) 2(ban2) ziz2 szunigin 1(barig) zi3 kiszib3-bi gu2-ru-dam kiszib3 i3-kal-la dumu he2#-dam
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 15, 377. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: WCMA 93.1.109d (Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA) — from Puzriš-Dagan (mod. Drehem) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P118642). source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P118642..
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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.
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