Position in chronology
CDLB 2016/001, §2.3.6
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 P392637)
Transliteration
1(gesz2) [gurusz u4 1(disz)-sze3] ki-su7# a#-sza3#-nin#-ur4-ra gub-ba [ugula] szesz#-kal-la# [kiszib3 ur]-szul-pa-e3 mu us2-sa szu-suen lugal-e bad3# mar-tu mu#-[du3] ur-szul-pa-e3 dub-sar dumu lugal-ku3-ga-ni
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLB 2016/001, §2.3.6. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šu-Suen y2 — Year after: Šu-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Los Angeles Unified School District, Los Angeles, California, USA (P392637) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P392637..
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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.