Position in chronology
CDLJ 2007/1 §3.23
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 P368376)
Transliteration
5(u) 8(asz) 2(barig) sze gur# ki-su7 usz-gid2-da 5(u) 6(asz) 3(barig) gur ki-su7 gu2-edin-na 1(gesz2) gur ki-su7 szu-nu#-[kusz2] 1(gesz2) 6(asz) 4(barig) 3(ban2) 4(disz) sila3# ki-su7 sahar-u2-u2 [...] 1(u) 1(asz) gur ki-su7 i7 [...] 3(asz) gur ki-su7 sag-[du3] szunigin 3(gesz2) 1(u) 6(asz) 3(barig) 3(ban2)# [4(disz) sila3] sze szuku-ta gur-[ra] gu2-edin-[na] u3# [musz]-bi-an-na giri3# lu2-szul#-gi#!?-ra# mu si-ma-num2 ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2007/1 §3.23. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Kalamazoo Valley Museum, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA (P368376) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P368376..
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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.