Position in chronology
AAICAB 1/1, pl. 079, 1932-280
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.
Transliteration
lu2#-[...] 1(disz) e#-[sir2 e2-ba-an] 1(disz) ummu3 nam-ha-ni lu2 kin-gi4-a 3(disz) e-sir2 e2-ba-an 3(disz) ummu3 lu2 kin-gi4-a u2-si-i mar-tu 3(disz) a-bi puzur4-en-lil2 sukkal maszkim 3(disz) dug udul2 lal3 i3-nun kisz udu u2-hab2-bi 1/3(disz) ka-tab-be2 nig2-szu-tak4-a lugal sza3 nibru-sze3 giri3 e2-a-illat-isz-bi-er3-ra ra2-gaba [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AAICAB 1/1, pl. 079, 1932-280. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P142863) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P142863..
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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.