Position in chronology
Smithsonian 09
Not yet translated
This tablet is catalogued with its transliteration, but no published translation exists yet. Our translation engine works through the untranslated corpus every night, oldest first — this page will update the day its turn comes. If you are a specialist and can read it, we would love your help.
The world it comes from
A bureaucratic golden age, the Code of Ur-Nammu.
From the same catalogue range (near P332578)
Transliteration
2(disz) udu niga sa2-du11 1(disz) masz2 dumu-munus kur-giri3-ni-sze3 2(disz) masz2-gal niga ta2-lim-en-lil2 2(disz) masz2 me-esz18-dar 1(disz) asz2-gar3 szu-ku8-bu-um iti-ta u4 5(disz) ba-ra-zal mu-kux(DU) szul-gi-si2-im-ti szul-gi-i3-li2 i3-dab5 iti szu-esz5-sza mu us2-sa ki-masz ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Smithsonian 09. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: SI 303284 (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA) — from Puzriš-Dagan (mod. Drehem) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P332578). source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P332578..
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.