Position in chronology
AAICAB 1/3, pl. 181, Bod A 08
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.
Transliteration
8(asz) 1(barig) sze gur kiszib3-bi 3(disz)-am3 i3-dub guru7 nin-gir2-su-ta szunigin 8(asz) 1(barig) gur [sza3]-bi#-ta [2(barig)] 3(ban2) 5(disz) sila3 sze-ba iti 1(disz)-kam iti 1(u) 2(disz)-sze3 sze-bi 6(asz) 1(barig) gur szunigin 6(asz) 1(barig) gur zi-ga la2-ia3 2(asz) gur nig2-ka9-ak ur-ba-ba6 mu en inanna masz2-e# i3-pa3 ur-ba-ba6 dumu lu2-nin-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AAICAB 1/3, pl. 181, Bod A 08. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P248971) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P248971..
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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.