Position in chronology
UET 3, 0023
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P136339.
Transliteration
[...] 1(szar'u) 1(szar2) la2 1(u) 3(disz) sa [...] zi-ga-am3 la2-ia3 3(szar2) 4(gesz'u) 1(gesz2) 4(u) sa x-[...] nig2-ka9-ak engar szabra uri5-[ma]-ke4-ne
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — UET 3, 0023. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P136339) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P136339..
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.