Position in chronology
Babyloniaca 07, 068 7 = 68 8 = 73 7
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 P104756)
Transliteration
pisan-dub-ba sze de6-a ur-lamma ensi2 mu kar2-har a-ra2 3(disz)-kam ba-hul mu an-sza-an mu us2-sa an-sza-an mu nanna kar-zi#-da# mu bad3 ma#-da mu e2 puzur4-isz-da-gan sze de6-a iri igi 6(disz) gar-ra sze de6-a gur-gi mu sza-asz-ru-um ba-hul nig2-du12-du12? sze mu e2 puzur4-isz-da-gan sze de6-a mu us2-sa e2 puzur4-isz-da-gan a2 hun-ga2 a-sza3 du6-ge6 uri5#-ma
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Babyloniaca 07, 068 7 = 68 8 = 73 7. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, USA (P104756) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P104756..
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.