Position in chronology
Princeton 2, 478
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 P201477)
Transliteration
1(disz) dug dida 5(disz) sila3 kasz saga 1(ban2) ninda 2(disz) gin2 i3 2(disz) gin2 naga 3(disz) sa szum2-ha-la-mu gaba-asz 1(disz) dug dida 3(disz) sila3 kasz du 1(ban2) ninda 2(disz) gin2 i3 2(disz) gin2 naga 3(disz) sa szum2 na-bi2-suen gaba-asz 3(disz) dug dida 2(ban2) kasz du 2(ban2) sila3 zi3-gu 1(barig) dabin lugal sza3-gal kas4 gaba-asz bala-a giri3 na-bi2-suen u4 1(u) 6(disz)-kam iti dumu-zi mu hu-hu-nu-ri
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Princeton 2, 478. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey, USA (P201477) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P201477..
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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.