Position in chronology
CDLJ 2007/1 §3.34
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 P368385)
Transliteration
2(disz) masz2 ur#-kal dumu ur-sa6# 2(disz) szesz-kal-la sipa# szer7-da-am3#? 2(disz) ur-mes dumu x-[...] 2(disz) al-la dumu ur#-[...] 2(disz) nu-mu-ru-e dumu ur-e2#-an-na 2(disz)# lugal-ki-ag2 dumu lu2-szara2 na-gada gab2-us2 ba-kux(KWU147)-ra 1(u) 2(disz) masz2 sipa# lu2#-hu-bu7 x de2#?-a-ri nam#-erim2#-bi in-ku5 ugula szar-ru-um-i3-li2#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2007/1 §3.34. 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 (P368385) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P368385..
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.