Position in chronology
RA 009, 053 SA 211 (pl. 6)
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 P127552)
Transliteration
1(disz) udu niga nig2-dab5 szu-suen e2 en-lil2-la2-ta 1(disz) sila4 en-lil2#-[i]-zu 1(disz) sila4 inim-ma-dingir-i3-zi 1(disz) sila4 ku3-[nanna] u4 2(u) 2(disz)-kam mu-kux(DU) lugal in-ta-e3-a i3-dab5 giri3 nanna-ma-ba dub-sar iti masz-da3-gu7 mu us2-sa si-ma-num2 ba-hul 4(disz) udu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — RA 009, 053 SA 211 (pl. 6). No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Couvent Sainte-Anne, Jerusalem (P127552) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P127552..
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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.