Position in chronology
CDLJ 2007/1 §3.29
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
A bureaucratic golden age, the Code of Ur-Nammu.
From the same catalogue range (near P368381)
Transliteration
3(u) 7(asz) 1(barig) 3(ban2) sze gur sze szuku erin2 engar sza3#-gu4# u3 dumu-gu4-gur i3-dub a-sza3 iri#-ul ki lu2-dingir-ra dumu ab-ba-mu-ta kiszib3 nam-mah dub-sar iti GAN2-masz mu i-bi2-suen lugal 3(u)# 7(asz)# [...] sze x i3-dub# iti GAN2-[masz] mu [i-bi2]-suen [lugal]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2007/1 §3.29. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Ibbi-Suen y1 — Ibbi-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Kalamazoo Valley Museum, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA (P368381) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P368381..
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.