Position in chronology
CDLJ 2002/1 §05
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 P212345)
Transliteration
1(disz) gukkal 2(disz) gukkal gesz-du3 3(disz) udu a-lum 3(disz) udu a-lum gesz-du3 2(disz) u8 gukkal 1(disz) sila4 gukkal u4 2(u) 5(disz)-kam ki ab-ba-sa6-ga-ta szul-gi-a-a-mu i3-dab5 iti ezem-mah min3 mu en-mah-gal-an-na en nanna ba-hun 1(u) 2(disz)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2002/1 §05. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Amar-Suen y5 — En-maḫgalanna en-priest of Nanna installed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: California Museum of Ancient Art, Los Angeles, California, USA (P212345) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P212345..
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.