Position in chronology
CDLJ 2002/1 §02
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 P212342)
Transliteration
5(disz) ab2-mah2 ki lu2-dingir-ra dumu ARAD2-hul3-la-ta szul-gi-a-mu i3-dab5 iti u4 2(u) 8(disz) ba-zal iti ses-da-gu7 mu amar-suen-ke4 ur-bi2-lum mu-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2002/1 §02. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: California Museum of Ancient Art, Los Angeles, California, USA (P212342) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P212342..
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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.