Position in chronology
CDLJ 2012/1 §4.36
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 P416447)
Transliteration
5(disz) udu a-lum lugal-ma2-gur8-re u2-ta2-mi-szar-ra-am maszkim# 2(disz) amar az e2-uz-ga a-a-kal-la maszkim 1(disz) gu4 1(u) udu szimaszgi ur-nin-gubalag nar sza3 mu-kux(DU)-ra-ta u4 1(u) la2 1(disz@t)-kam ki ab-ba-sa6#-ga-ta iti ezem-mah# mu en inanna ba-hun 1(u) 8(disz)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2012/1 §4.36. 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 (P416447) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P416447..
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.