Position in chronology
TAD 62
Not yet translated
This tablet is catalogued with its transliteration and photographed, 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 P131104)
Transliteration
4(disz) gu4 niga er3-ra-ba-ni i3-dab5 4(u) 5(disz) udu u2-da-mi-szar-ra-am 1(disz) udu ur-ba-ba6 szabra 5(u) gu4 sig4-te-li2 3(gesz2) 3(u) sila4 lugal-ma2-gur8-re 1(gesz2) 5(disz) udu lu2-dingir-ra 7(disz) gu4 en-lil2-la2 i3-dab5 2(gesz'u) 5(gesz2) 3(u) 5(disz) udu du11-ga i3-dab5 u4 1(u) 7(disz)-kam 1(gesz'u) 3(u) 3(disz) udu ib2-diri u4 3(disz)-kam kiszib3-bi sza3 pisan a2 u4-da gu-la iti ezem-an-na mu en eridu ba-hun [(x)]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — TAD 62. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P131104) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P131104..
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.