Position in chronology
ASJ 09, 246 23
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 P102299)
Transliteration
8(disz) sar kin u2 sahar-ba kab2-ku5 e2-ansze-ka 1(u) 2(disz) 2/3(disz) sar kab2-ku5 u2-du-nin-a-ra-li 4(disz) sar kab2-ku5 gu4-suhub2 1(u) 9(disz) sar 6(disz) gin2 kab2-ku5 a-bu3#-ka 1(u) 6(disz) sar kab2-ku5 na-ra-am-suen 7(disz) sar kab2-ku5 u2-du-mu-ul-li 2(u)# 4(disz) sar [...] u2-[...] 6(disz)# sar kab2-ku5 [...] szunigin 1(gesz2) 3(u) 6(disz) 2/3(disz) sar 6(disz) gin2 kin u2# sahar-ba kin e2-ta e3-a kiszib3 lu2-szara2 mu hu-uh2-nu-ri ba-hul lu2-szara2 dub-(sar) dumu iri-bar-[re]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — ASJ 09, 246 23. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (P102299) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P102299..
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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.