Position in chronology
RTC 057
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 P221454)
Transliteration
2(gesz2@c) 5(u@c) la2 2(asz@c) sze gur saggal 1(gesz2@c) 4(u@c) la2 2(asz@c) ziz2 babbar2 szu-nigin2 4(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) 6(asz@c) gur saggal sze u2-rum en-en3-tar-zi ensi2 lagasz-ka lugal-pirig-tur sanga gesz be2-ra 3(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — RTC 057. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P221454) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P221454..
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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.