Position in chronology
CDLJ 2012/1 §4.24
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 P416434)
Transliteration
4(disz) udu niga# 1(disz) [...] szul#-gi-[...] 1(disz) sila4 szar-ru-[...] 1(disz) amar masz-da3 nita2 ib-ni-szul-gi# u4# 2(u)#? 8(disz)#?-kam# mu-kux(DU) lugal in-ta-e3-a i3-dab5# giri3# nu-ur2-suen# iti sze-sag11-ku5# mu us2-sa szu-suen# lugal-e si-ma-num2 mu-hul# 6(disz) udu 1(disz) masz-da3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2012/1 §4.24. 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 (P416434) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P416434..
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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.