Position in chronology
CDLJ 2012/1 §4.46
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 P416439)
Transliteration
3(disz) udu niga sa2-du11 geme2-en-lil2-la2 dumu-munus#? en-na [u4] 1(disz)-[kam] ki na-lu5-ta# ba-zi sza3 nibru giri3 lu2-nin-szubur dub-sar iti ezem-szu-suen mu szu-suen lugal-e bad3 mar-tu mu-ri-iq-ti-id-ni-im mu-du3 3(disz)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2012/1 §4.46. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šu-Suen y5 — Šu-Suen built the Amorite wall Muriq-Tidnim based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, USA (P416439) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P416439..
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.