Position in chronology
CDLJ 2002/1 §11
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 P212351)
Transliteration
1(u) udu kiszib3 lu2-saga 2(disz) udu kiszib3 ur-iszkur szabra 1(disz) udu kiszib3 ha-ba-mu 1(disz) udu kiszib3 i3-li2-a 4(disz) udu ur-szu muhaldim 1(disz) udu kiszib3 ur-sukkal 1(disz) udu ri-im-i3-li2 ab-ba-kal-la szu ba-ti iti ezem-szul-gi mu e2 szara2 ba-du3 2(u) ab-ba-kal-la dub-sar dumu lu2-nin-gir2-su
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2002/1 §11. 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 (P212351) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P212351..
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.