Position in chronology
SACT 1, 107
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P128862.
Transliteration
6(disz) udu ba-usz2 1(u) la2 1(disz) masz2 ba-usz2 ki ur-ma-mi-ta kiszib3 ensi2-ka iti ezem-szul-gi mu ur-bi2-lum ba-hul szul-gi nita kal-ga lugal uri5-ma lugal an-ub-da limmu2-ba ur-[li9-si4] ensi2# umma#[] ARAD2-zu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — SACT 1, 107. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Spurlock Museum, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA (P128862) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P128862..
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.