Position in chronology
CDLJ 2007/1 §3.37
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 P368388)
Transliteration
2(u) 3(asz) sze [gur] ur-an-dul3 kikken2#? 6(asz) 1(barig) gur inim-szara2# kuruszda 2(asz) gig gur igi-dingir-sze3 lu2 szabra 3(asz) gur ur-nin-tu 1(u) 1(asz) gur ur-isztaran# ugula kikken sze gesz e3-a giri3 szesz-kal-la
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2007/1 §3.37. 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 (P368388) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P368388..
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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.