Position in chronology
KTT 135
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.
From the same catalogue range (near P392770)
Transliteration
5(asz) _a-gar3 sze_ _sza3-gal_ 2(u) _gu4 hi-a 1(ban2)-am3_ _engar_ a-bu-ka-il3 5(asz) _a-gar3 sze_ 2(u) _gu4 hi-a 1(ban2)-am3_ _engar_ mu-ut-ra-me-em 5(asz) _a-gar3 sze_ [2(u)] _gu4 hi-a 1(ban2)-am3_ _engar_ a-bi-an-dulx(SAG)-li2# _szunigin_ 1(u) 5(asz) _a-gar3 sze_ _sza3-gal_ 1(disz) szu-szi _gu4 hi-a 1(ban2)-am3_ _nig2-szu lu2 engar_ _iti_ na-ab-ri-im _u4 3(u)-kam_ li-mu iszkur-ba-ni
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — KTT 135. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: National Museum of Syria, Raqqa, Syria (P392770) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P392770..
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.