Position in chronology
SACT 1, 144
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P128899.
Transliteration
1(disz) udu niga 1(disz) ud5 niga du6-ku3 nansze-GIR2@g-gal maszkim 5(disz) udu niga sa2-du11 hal-hal-la iti 1(disz)-kam e2# u4-sakar iti u4 3(u) la2 1(disz) ba-zal ki na-lu5-ta ba-zi sza3 nibru iti szu-esz5-sza mu gu-za sza3 hul2-la en-lil2-la2 ba-dim2 7(disz)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — SACT 1, 144. 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 (P128899) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P128899..
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.