Position in chronology
SACT 1, 128
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P128883.
Transliteration
1(disz) sila4 nanna mu-kux(DU) lu2-nanna zabar-dab5 maszkim zi-ga u4 1(u)? 5(disz)-kam iti ezem-mah mu szul-gi lugal-e ur-bi2-lum lu-lu-bu si-mu-ru-um u3 kar2-har 1(disz)-sze3 sag-bi szu-bur2-a bi2-ra-a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — SACT 1, 128. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y1 — Šulgi became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Spurlock Museum, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA (P128883) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P128883..
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.