Position in chronology
NYPL 358
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 P122896)
Transliteration
[x] gin2 ku3 mu 2(disz) masz-ta ku3 inim-ma-dingir dam-gar3 ku3-bi 1(disz) ma-na la2 3(disz) gin2 inim-ma-dingir-ra gi4-gi4-de3 ki lu2-kal-la-ta ur-szul-pa-e3 ku3-dim2 szu ba-ti igi ur-nun-gal-sze3 igi ur-szara2? nu-banda3 erin2-na-sze3 igi lu2-ur4-sza3-ga-sze3 igi lugal-nesag-e-sze3 igi ku3-nin-ur4-ra-sze3 iti dal mu ma2 en-ki ba-ab-du8
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NYPL 358. 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 (P122896) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P122896..
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.