Position in chronology
TSU 091
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P135241.
Transliteration
x [...] i3-ba dingir-re-ne-sze3 4(disz) sila3 lal3 ezem-ka e2 nin-gir2-su-ka# u3 e2 ba-ba6 ki ur-e2-gal dam-[gar3-ta] lugal-GIR2@g?-gal dub-[sar] dumu lu2-ba?-[ba6?]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — TSU 091. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: MRAH O.0517 (Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels, Belgium) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P135241). source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P135241..
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.