Position in chronology
Ontario 2, 229
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 P209464)
Transliteration
1(gesz'u) 3(gesz2) 7(asz) sze gur 4(u) 1(asz) zi3 gur sze GAN2-gu4 nu-banda3-gu4 da-du-mu 1(u) 5(asz) 2(barig) sze gur sze szukur-ra sza3-gu4-ka szunigin 1(gesz'u) 3(gesz2) 2(asz) sze gur szunigin 4(u) 1(asz) zi3 gur sze gesz e3-a ki-su7 HI-a-bar-ra giri3 ur-esz3 u3 ur-dingir-ra dub-sar iti sze-kar-ra-gal2-la mu en-unu6-gal inanna ba-hun
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Ontario 2, 229. 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: Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (P209464) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P209464..
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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.