Position in chronology
NYPL 159
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 P122697)
Transliteration
1(asz) 4(barig) 5(ban2) esir2 E2-A gur ugu2 ur-ge6-par4 ba-a-gar 4(barig) 1(ban2) 4(disz) sila3 esir2 E2-A ugu2 a-gu ba-a-gar 1(barig) esir2 E2-A kiszib3 e2-gal-e-si szunigin 3(disz) <4(disz) sila3> esir2 E2-A gur ki szara2-kam-ta gaba-ri kiszib3 lu2-kal-la giri3 gu-du-du mu szu-suen lugal-e ma-da za-ab-sza-li mu-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NYPL 159. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šu-Suen y6 — Land of Zabšali destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: New York Public Library, New York, New York, USA (P122697) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P122697..
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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.