Position in chronology
MVN 13, 553
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 P117326)
Transliteration
1(disz) gu4 niga sza3-gal u4 1(disz)-a-bi 4(disz) sila3 nig2-ar3-ra du-ta 6(disz) 2/3(disz) sila3 duh saga-ta 1(ban2) 3(disz) 1/3(disz) sila3 duh du-ta u4 3(u)-sze3 nig2-ar3-ra du-bi 2(barig) duh saga-bi 3(barig) 2(ban2) duh du-bi 1(asz) 1(barig) 4(ban2) gur sza3-gal gu4 niga iti sig4-i3-szub-ba-gar mu szu-suen lugal-e bad3 mar-tu mu-du3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 13, 553. 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: Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P117326) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P117326..
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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.