Position in chronology
UET 3, 0245
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P136562.
Transliteration
5/6(disz) sila3 i3-nun mu-kux(DU) ki-su7-ta e11-de3 [...] x unu3-ta masz2-da-re-a lugal ga-ti-e [...] ugula lugal#-[...] iti ezem-nin-a-zu mu us2-sa bad3-gal ba-du3-a mu us2-sa-bi lugal-mah? dub-sar dumu [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — UET 3, 0245. 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 (P136562) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P136562..
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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.