Position in chronology
TCL 02, 5608
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P131697.
Transliteration
6(disz) sila4 niga 5(disz) kir11 niga sa2!-du11 e2-uz-ga ba-mu i3-dab5 iti 1(disz)-kam zi-ga ki na-lu5 iti masz-da3-gu7 mu si-mu-ru-um u3 lu-lu-bu-um a-ra2 1(u) la2 1(disz)-kam-asz ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — TCL 02, 5608. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P131697) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P131697..
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.