Position in chronology
BE 03/1, 099
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 P105651)
Transliteration
[n] 1(asz) ma#-na# [...] [x]-tum#-al-e? [n?] 6(disz)# gin2 ku3-babbar nig2-sa10 ansze [n?] 3(disz) 1/2(disz) gin2 mu a-kal-la ARAD2-sze3 [n] n gi sa [...] x ku3 za3-szu2 [...] x x ku3-bi [...] i3-szah2 [ku3]-bi# 1(disz) gin2 igi 3(disz)-gal2 lugal#-me3-a lu2 azlag2 4(disz) sila3 i3-gesz ku3-bi 1/2(disz) gin2 lugal-inim-gi-na 2(disz) gin2 ku3-babbar nig2-sa10 uruda u3 nagga ur-LI simug [x] sza3-kal# ku3-bi igi 3(disz)-gal2 1(u) 5(disz) sze
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — BE 03/1, 099. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P105651) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P105651..
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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.