Position in chronology
SANTAG 6, 077
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P211585.
Transliteration
1(u) 1(disz) kusz masz2-gal ki a-du-ta gu-du-du szu ba-ti iti diri mu us2-sa ki-masz inim-szara2 dub-sar dumu ur-nigar
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — SANTAG 6, 077. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (P211585) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P211585..
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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.