Position in chronology
UET 3, 0894
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P137218.
Transliteration
1(ban2) zi3-gu 1(ban2) dabin a-ra2 1(disz)-kam 1(ban2) zi3-gu 1(ban2) dabin a-ra2 2(disz)-kam szar-ru-um-i3-li2 ra2-gaba e2 ur-ga2-da-ka gul-de3 i3-im-gen-na ba-zi iti u5-bi2-gu7 mu ur-bi2-lum[] ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — UET 3, 0894. 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 (P137218) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P137218..
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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.