Position in chronology
CDLB 2007/002 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 P373967)
Transliteration
2(gesz2) 4(u) 1(asz) 1(barig) 3(ban2) sze gur ugula gu-u2-gu-a 2(gesz2) 1(u) 7(asz) 4(barig) sze gur# ugula kas4 a-sza3 sza-ra-hum-ma sze gesz e3-a ki-su7 i3-szum2-ma iti dal mu szu-suen lugal-e e2-szara2 umma-ka mu-du3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLB 2007/002 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: Clinton Historical Society, Clinton, Massachusetts, USA (P373967) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P373967..
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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.