Position in chronology
BECPL 3
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 P464910)
Transliteration
1(disz) masz2-gal u2 1(disz) sila4 en inanna mu za3 1(u) mu-kux(DU) lugal sza3 unu-ga-ka-ni e2 en-lil2 nin-lil2 szu ba-an-kux(KWU636)-ra-sze3 ki-ba ba-na-a-ga2-ar u4 1(u) 2(disz)-kam ki ur-ku3-nun-na-ta ba-zi giri3 lu2-sza-lim dub-sar iti a2-ki-ti mu szu-suen lugal uri5-ma-ke4 ma2-gur8-mah en-lil2 nin#-lil2#-ra# mu-ne-dim2 2(disz) udu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — BECPL 3. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šu-Suen y1 — Šu-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, Buffalo, New York, USA (P464910) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P464910..
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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.