Position in chronology
MVN 21, 290
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P120527.
Transliteration
[(x)] sze gur lugal ur5-sze3 ki ur-nigar-ta mu ur-utu szesz ki-ag2-ka-sze3 ur-e2-an-na dumu a2-na-na-ke4 szu ba-ti iti ezem-szul-gi mu an-sza-an ba-hul ur-e2-an-na dumu a2-na-na
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 21, 290. 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: State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (P120527) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P120527..
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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.