Position in chronology
CDLJ 2012/1 §4.62
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 P416443)
Transliteration
5(disz) udu u2 7(disz) masz2-gal u2 8(disz) sila4 2(disz) masz2 ba-usz2 u4 5(disz)-kam ki ur-ku3-nun-na-ta szul-gi-iri-mu szu ba-ti giri3# nanna-ma-ba u3# lu2#-sza-lim [iti] ezem#-an-na mu szu-suen# lugal uri5-ma-ke4 e2 szara2 umma-ka mu-du3 2(u) 2(disz) udu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2012/1 §4.62. 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 (P416443) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P416443..
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.