Position in chronology
SACT 2, 208
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P129165.
Transliteration
1(u) 5(disz) gur zi3-da esir2 su-ba ki a-gu-ta kiszib3 a-kal-la iti szu-numun mu us2-sa ma2 en-ki ba-ab-du8 a-kal-la [dub-sar] [dumu] lu2-sa6-[ga]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — SACT 2, 208. 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 (P129165) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P129165..
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.