Position in chronology
DP 438
Not yet translated
This tablet is catalogued with its transliteration and photographed, but no published translation exists yet. Our translation engine works through the untranslated corpus every night, oldest first — this page will update the day its turn comes. If you are a specialist and can read it, we would love your help.
From the same catalogue range (near P221088)
Transliteration
3(u@c) 5(asz@c) ur3 gibil gesz dam-dingir-mu tir ambar-ta ma2-a e-me-gar-ra-am6 4(u@c) 3(asz@c) ur3 sumun e2 du6 me-kul-aba4-ta-ka-ta i3-kux(DU)-a-am6 e2 ki-siki-ka nin-inim-zi-da-ka-ka e-gal2 en-ig-gal nu-banda3 e2-a gal2-la-bi bi2-szid 2(|ASZxDISZ@t|) dub-bi 2(disz@t)-am6
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 438. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P221088) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P221088..
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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.