Position in chronology
NATN 197
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 P120895)
Transliteration
3(u) 5(asz) sze gur szesz-da-da 2(barig) imgaga3 lugal-ku3-zu 3(barig) imgaga3 SI-A-a-ti 1(asz) 2(barig) sze gur im-ti-dam 2(disz) gin2 ku3-babbar szu-nisaba 1(disz) gin2 ku3 a-bu-zu-ni 2(disz) gin2 ku3 dam-li-bu-a [x] gin2 ku3 nam-zi-da-ra szunigin 5(disz) 1/2(disz) gin2 ku3-babbar szunigin 3(u) 6(asz) 2(barig) sze gur szunigin 1(asz) imgaga3 gur
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NATN 197. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P120895) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P120895..
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.