Position in chronology
NYPL 247
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 P122785)
Transliteration
1(disz) masz2-gal siskur2 ma2 lugal e2-a-ra-a sza3 bala-a-ri giri3 bi2-ti-ti sukkal 3(disz) udu 7(disz) u8 szu-gid2 e2-muhaldim mu aga3-us2-e-ne-sze3 ARAD2-mu maszkim u4 1(u) 1(disz)-kam ki du11-ga-ta ba-zi giri3 nu-ur2-iszkur dub-sar iti u5-bi2-gu7 mu ma2-dara3-abzu en-ki ba-ab-du8 1(u) 1(disz) udu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NYPL 247. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: New York Public Library, New York, New York, USA (P122785) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P122785..
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.