Position in chronology
RTC 270
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.
Transliteration
1(disz) tug2 nig2-lam2 saga 1(disz) tug2 gu2-e3 us2 1(disz) tug2 bur2 saga ur-ga2 2(disz) tug2 mu-du8-um lu2-ba-ba6 1(disz) tug2 aktum us2 2(disz) tug2 guz-za us2 ki ur-sa6-ga-ta# giri3 ur-sa6-ga# ur-esz3-lil2-la2 szu ba-ti iti GAN2-masz mu i7 a-nin-tu ba-al
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — RTC 270. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P128424) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P128424..
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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.