Position in chronology
SACT 2, 260
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P129217.
Transliteration
1(u) sila4 kin-gi4-<a> 2/3(disz) sila3-ta u4 1(disz)-sze3 u4 3(u)-sze3 sze-bi 3(barig) 2(ban2) iti e2-iti-6(disz) mu sza-asz-szu2-ru-um ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — SACT 2, 260. 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 (P129217) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P129217..
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.