Position in chronology
MVN 20, 070
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 P143003)
Transliteration
1(disz) tug2 u2 ge6 muru13 lu2-ur4-sza3-ga 1(disz) tug2 nig2-lam2 su-si szara2-zi-mu# ugula szara2-nir-gal2 1(disz) tug2 u2 muru13 li-bur-ne 1(disz) tug2 usz-bar tur ur-dumu-zi-da#? ugula lu2-nanna 1(disz) tug2 u2 ge6 kal lugal-ma2#-gur8#-re bahar3# ugula [x]-an 1(disz) tug2# u2# ge6 kal ba-ba# 1(disz) tug2 u2 ge6 kal e2#-[gal?]-e#?-si [1(disz)] tug2# usz-bar szara2-[...] x [1(disz) tug2] usz#-bar# lu2-igi-sa6#-[sa6] dub-sar zi3#? lugal mu i-bi2-suen lugal-e si-mu-ru-um#[] mu-[hul]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 20, 070. 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: State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (P143003) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P143003..
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.