Position in chronology
Whitman 2
Not yet translated
This tablet is catalogued with its transliteration and photographed, but no published translation exists yet. Our translation engine works through the untranslated corpus every night, oldest first — this page will update the day its turn comes. If you are a specialist and can read it, we would love your help.
The world it comes from
A bureaucratic golden age, the Code of Ur-Nammu.
From the same catalogue range (near P416492)
Transliteration
3(disz) 2/3(disz) sila3 i3-szah2 giri3 da-a-ga szabra ki a-kal-la-ta ugu2 ur-e11-e ba-a-gar kiszib3 ur-szara2 sza13-dub-ba mu ha-ar-szi ki-masz ba-hul ur-szara2 dub-sar dumu lugal-uszur4
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Whitman 2. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Penrose Library, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington, USA (P416492) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P416492..
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.