Position in chronology
CDLJ 2012/1 §4.04
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 P416455)
Transliteration
3(disz)# udu niga# 1(disz) sila4 lamma-mu 2(disz) gu4 1(u) 6(disz) udu 3(disz) masz2-gal# 1(disz) masz2 szar-ru-um-ba-ni nu-banda3 1(disz) sila4 ensi2 gir2-su[] 2(disz) sila4 ensi2 nibru mu-kux(DU) iti# ezem-an-na# mu en nanna masz2-e i3-pa3 u4 2(u) 3(disz)-kam
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2012/1 §4.04. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, USA (P416455) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P416455..
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.