Position in chronology
NMSA 3836
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 P342010)
Transliteration
[x] nig2 ar3-ra saga gur 1(barig)# 5(ban2) 5(disz) sila3 ba ba munu4 4(asz)# 1(barig) 3(ban2) 1(disz) 1/2(disz) sila3 SZIM saga gur 1(asz) 1(barig) nig2 ar3-ra imgaga3 gur 3(barig) nig2 ar3-ra du 1(u) 8(asz) 1(ban2) munu4 si-e3 gur nag# lugal u3 nag szagina sze-bi 4(u) 1(asz) 3(barig) 4(ban2) 3(disz) 1/3(disz) sila3 5(disz) gin2 gur 5(asz) 4(barig) 5(ban2) 2(disz) sila3 dabin sza3-gal muhaldim 4(asz)# ninda u3 duh x 4(asz) ninda x x ma-gan gur
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NMSA 3836. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: National Museum of Syria, Aleppo, Syria (P342010) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P342010..
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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.