Position in chronology
CDLJ 2009/2 §2.2
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 P384819)
Transliteration
3(disz) amar [gu4 ...] 1(disz) amar gu4 [...] 1(disz) amar ansze apin [...] 1(disz) amar ab2# lu2-utu sze-bi 1(asz) 3(barig) gur sza3-gal amar gu4 apin ki-su7 gu-la a-sza3 la2-mah-ta# ki# ARAD2-ta [ba-zi] kiszib3 i7-pa-e3 iti li9-si4 mu gu-za ku3 en-lil2-la2 ba-dim2 i7-pa-e3 dumu lugal-uszurx(|LAL2.TUG2|) nu-banda3-gu4 szara2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2009/2 §2.2. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Special Collections, Robert Manning Strozier Library, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA (P384819) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P384819..
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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.