Position in chronology
AUCT 1, 542
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 P103387)
Transliteration
1(szar2) 3(gesz'u) 7(gesz2) 5(u) la2 1(disz) kusz nig2-gal2-la la2-ia3 1(gesz'u) 8(gesz2) 2(u) 2(disz) ad7 udu 8(gesz2) 2(u) 8(disz) ad7 sila4 3(gesz2) kusz udu 1(gesz'u) 2(gesz2) 4(u) 3(disz) kusz sila4 3(gesz2) 4(u) 2(disz) szu4-dul4 udu 4(u) la2 1(disz) szu4-dul4 sila4 la2-ia3-am3 ur-ig-alim szu ba-ti sza3 ki-nu-nir u3 sza3 gu2-ab-ba mu ha-ar-szi
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AUCT 1, 542. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Siegfried H. Horn Museum, Institute of Archaeology, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, USA (P103387) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P103387..
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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.