Position in chronology
CDLJ 2012/1 §3.08
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 P416413)
Transliteration
5(ban2) 5(disz) 1/2(disz) sila3 dabin u4 7(disz)-kam 5(ban2) 8(disz) sila3 dabin# u4 8(disz)-kam 3(ban2) 8(disz) u4 1(u) la2 1(disz@t)-kam 2(ban2) zi3 sagi ki lu2-dingir-ra-ta kiszib3 ensi2-ka iti sig4-i3-szub-ba#-gar# mu us2-sa szu-suen lugal
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2012/1 §3.08. 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: Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, USA (P416413) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P416413..
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.