Position in chronology
CDLJ 2012/1 §4.19
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 P416421)
Transliteration
1(disz) amar gu4 ga 1(u) 5(disz) sila4 ga 7(disz) kir11 ga 8(disz) masz2 ga u3-tu-da sza3 na-gab2-tum-ma u4 7(disz)-kam szul-gi-a-a-mu i3-dab5 iti sze-sag11-ku5 mu en-mah-gal-an-na en nanna ba-hun 1(disz) gu4 3(u) udu#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2012/1 §4.19. 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: Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, USA (P416421) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P416421..
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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.