Position in chronology
CDLJ 2008/2 §2.16
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 P382201)
Transliteration
1(u)# 4(disz)# gurusz u4 1(u) 5(disz)-sze3# a2#-bi 3(gesz2) 3(u) gurusz [a2] gurusz# u4-du8-a-bi 2(u) 1(disz) u4 1(disz)-sze3 kun#-zi#-da i7 pa2#-ri2-ik-tum-ma a-sza3 dal-ba-na kun zu-de3 ba-gi4 ki ku-li-ta ba#-zi# [...] [mu] us2#-sa# [...] x? ti [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2008/2 §2.16. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Erzabtei St. Martin zu Beuron, Beuron, Germany (P382201) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P382201..
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.