Position in chronology
TCBI 2/2, 43
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 P381697)
Transliteration
3(disz) udu niga giri3 uri5-ma 1(disz) udu ba-usz2 ki ARAD2-mu-ta ba-zi iti ku3-SZIM u4 5(disz) ba-zal mu szu-suen lugal uri5-ma-ke4 na-ru2-a en-lil2 nin-lil2-ra mu-ne-du3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — TCBI 2/2, 43. 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: Banca d'Italia, Rome, Italy (P381697) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P381697..
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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.