Position in chronology
CUSAS 15, 153
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.
The world it comes from
Hammurabi, the Epic of Gilgamesh, mathematics.
Transliteration
_2(disz) sila3 szuku_ i-ri-ba sza _inim-ma_ i-na-s,a-ru _iti szu-numun-a u4 1(disz)-kam_ _2(disz) sila3 u4 2(disz)-kam_ _2(disz) sila3 u4 3(disz)-kam_ _2(disz) sila3 u4 4(disz)-kam_ _2(disz) sila3 u4 5(disz)-kam_ _2(disz) sila3 u4# 6(disz)-kam_ _2(disz) sila3 u4# 7(disz)#-kam_ _2(disz) sila3 u4 8(disz)-kam_ _1(ban2) 6(disz) sila3_ _iti szu-numun-a u4 8(disz)-kam_ _mu-e i7 gu3-nun-di in-si-ga_
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — CUSAS 15, 153. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Rare Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York, USA (P270770) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P270770..
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.