Position in chronology
CDLJ 2006/2 §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.
From the same catalogue range (near P273416)
Transliteration
6(disz) tug2 usz-bar tur sumun 2(disz) tug2 sza3-ga-du3 sumun mu usz-bar x 2(disz) tug2 usz-bar tur 1(disz) tug2 usz-bar zu2 uh mu amar-suen lugal-e ur-bi2-lum mu-hul ki ensi2-ka-ta kiszib3 i3-kal-la ur-szara2-ke4 ba-an-dabx(U8) [ur-szara2] dub-sar dumu lugal-[uszur4]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2006/2 §08. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Amar-Suen y2 — Urbilum destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Odum Library, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, Georgia, USA (P273416) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P273416..
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.