Position in chronology
CDLJ 2012/1 §4.07
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 P416438)
Transliteration
2(disz) gu4 niga 6(disz) udu niga gu4-e-us2-sa 1(u) 1(disz) udu 1(disz) sila4 1(disz) masz2 2(disz) amar masz-da3 ensi2 umma mu-kux(DU)# a2-ki-ti sze-sag11-ku5-ka [...] 2(disz) masz2-gal 1(disz) sila4 nigar-ki-du10 [n] udu niga 1(disz) sila4 ensi2# [a-pi2-ak] [...] x [...] [...] [...] [iti masz-da3]-gu7 [mu] us2#-sa ur-bi2#-lum ba-hul u4 [n-kam]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2012/1 §4.07. 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 (P416438) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P416438..
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.