Position in chronology
MVN 18, 395
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P119756.
Transliteration
3(u) gu2 gi utu2#? i7# ma2-gur8-ra-sze3 de6-a a-kal-la# nu-banda3 kiszib3 ra-ra-dam 4(u) 5(asz) gu2 gi utu2 ur-gigir lu2 gi-zi szu ba-ti kiszib3 ra-ra-dam iti ezem-szul-gi mu an-sza-an ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 18, 395. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y35 — Anšan destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Montserrat Museum, Barcelona, Spain (P119756) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P119756..
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.