Position in chronology
UET 3, 1800
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P138126.
Transliteration
5(disz) sila3? i3-gesz x x ti? 5(disz) x ka5#? nesag-e x x x du8-a-me x x x szu ba-an#-ti-esz2 iti ezem-nin-a#-zu# mu us2-sa# [...] mu us2#-[sa-...] lugal-kisal-ba-e mu-sar dumu lu2-gir2-nun
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — UET 3, 1800. 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 (P138126) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P138126..
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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.