Position in chronology
CUCT c
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 P108800)
Transliteration
8(gesz2) 2(u) 3(disz) sa gi ki lu2-ur4-sza3-ga-ta kiszib3 lu2-saga iti dal mu szu-suen lugal uri5-ma-ke4! e2 szara2 umma-ka mu-du3 lu2-sa6#-ga dumu za-mu? aga3-us2#?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUCT c. 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: Semitics/ICOR Collections, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA (P108800) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P108800..
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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.