Position in chronology
CDLJ 2002/1 §10
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 P212350)
Transliteration
1(disz) gu4# 2(u) 5(disz) udu 5(u) 5(disz) masz2-gal 2(disz) sila4 u4 1(u) 4(disz)-kam sza3-bi-ta# 1(disz) gu4-gesz x-la2#-ia3#-sze3#? 1(gesz2) 2(u) 2(disz) udu# al#-la#-x [...] ki in-ta-e3-a-ta du11-ga i3-dab5 iti ezem-me-ki-gal2 mu ma2-dara3-abzu ba-ab-du8
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2002/1 §10. 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 (P212350) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P212350..
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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.