Position in chronology
RTC 350
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 P128503)
Transliteration
5(disz) sila3 zi3 lu2-da-mu sze e2-udu-ka-sze3 im-szi-gen-na 2(disz) sila3 e3-dar-ki-ni egir nin-u3-kul-e?-ki-ag2-a-sze3 gen-na 2(disz) sila3 a-hu-ni 2(disz) sila3 a-na-a-a lu2 szuszin-ta-me 2(disz) sila3 da-a-a sukkal sze lu2 ma2 gal-gal-ke4-ne-sze3 im-szi-gen-na 2(disz) sila3 szul-gi-en-lil2-la2 ki ensi2-ka-sze3 gen-na zi-ga u4 1(u) 2(disz)-kam iti szu-numun
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — RTC 350. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P128503) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P128503..
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.