Position in chronology
CDLB 2014/001 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 P459210)
Transliteration
2(barig) 3(ban2) 9(disz) 1/3(disz) sila3 i3-szah2 la2-ia3 su-ga ki szu-utu ugula geme2 gesz-i3 sur-sur-ra-ta bi2-bi2 dub-sar i3 szu ba-ti mu szu-suen lugal uri5-ma-ke4 ma2-gur8-mah en-lil2 nin-lil2-ra mu-ne-dim2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLB 2014/001 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: Private: anonymous, Sweden (P459210) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P459210..
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.