Position in chronology
AAICAB 1/1, pl. 021, 1911-173
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P142686.
Transliteration
pisan-dub-ba nig2-ka9-ak gi? u3 DUB tug2#? am#? lugal-[...] i3-gal2# sza3 bala-a mu 5(disz)-kam mu en eridu ba-hun-ta mu si-ma-num2 ba-hul-sze3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AAICAB 1/1, pl. 021, 1911-173. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P142686) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P142686..
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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.