Position in chronology
BCT 2, k
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 P105551)
Transliteration
2(asz) [sze gur] lugal# e2 x-ta 1(asz) 2(barig) 3(ban2) sze gur e2-x-TUG2-SAL e2-szu-tum-ta sa2-du11# szara2 ki ARAD2-ta kiszib3 al-lu# iti dal mu ku3#-gu#-za [en]-lil2-[la2 ba-dim2] al-lu dumu a2-nin-ga2-[ta]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — BCT 2, k. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, Birmingham, UK (P105551) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P105551..
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.