Position in chronology
UC CSC 1959
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P481400.
Transliteration
1(disz) masz2 ba-usz2 giri3 nin-gir2-su-ka-ni-sa6 zi-ga iti ezem-szul-gi mu sza-asz-ru-um ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — UC CSC 1959. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA (P481400) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P481400..
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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.