Position in chronology
NYPL 149
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P122686.
Transliteration
1(szar2) 4(gesz2) sa gi gu-nigin2-ba 1(u) 3(disz) sa ki lugal-ti-da-ta szesz-kal-la szu ba-ti iti szu-numun mu us2-sa bad3 ma-da ba-du3 szesz-kal-la dub-sar dumu lugal-la-ba?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NYPL 149. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y31 — Year after: The frontier wall was built based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: New York Public Library, New York, New York, USA (P122686) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P122686..
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.