Position in chronology
CDLJ 2015/3 §2.30
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 P404809)
Transliteration
4(disz) udu niga 2(disz) sila4 wa-ta2-ru-um sanga 1(disz) sila4 al-la-mu 1(disz) sila4 lugal-uri3 2(disz) udu niga 1(disz) masz2 szul-gi-a-bi2 u4 2(u)-kam mu-kux(DU) ab-ba-sa6-ga i3-dab5 iti ses!-da-gu7 mu en-unu6-gal inanna ba-hun 1(u) 1(disz)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2015/3 §2.30. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Amar-Suen y4 — En-unugal of Inanna installed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Oriental Museum, University of Durham, Durham, UK (P404809) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P404809..
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.