Position in chronology
CDLJ 2012/1 §4.45
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 P416449)
Transliteration
1(disz) gu4 mu# [...] 8(disz) u8 [...] mu aga3-us2 a-tu5#-[a-ka] e2-gal-la kux(KWU636)-[ra-ne-sze3] 8(disz) u8 u2# mu aga3-us2-e-ne-sze3 e2-muhaldim nanna-kam sukkal maszkim u4 2(u) 6(disz)-kam ki ur-ku3-nun-na-ta ba-zi giri3 nanna-ma-ba dub-sar iti ki-siki-nin-a-zu# mu szu-suen# lugal uri5[-ma-ke4] bad3 mar-tu [mu-ri-iq]-ti-id-ni#-im mu-[du3] 1(disz) gu4 1(u) 6(disz) udu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2012/1 §4.45. 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: Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, USA (P416449) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P416449..
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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.