Position in chronology
Orient 55, 158-159 no. 4
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 P424382)
Transliteration
1(gesz'u) 1(u) 2(disz) sa gi ma2 ninda la2-a u3 ma2-2(disz) du3-a bala-sze3 ki lugal-a2-zi-da-ta kiszib3 hu-wa-wa giri3 ga-ti-e mu sza-asz-szu2-ru-um a-ra2 2(disz)-kam ba-hul lu2-[eb-gal] dub-sar dumu ur-ge6-par4
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Orient 55, 158-159 no. 4. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: WCMA 20.1.15 (Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P424382). source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P424382..
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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.