Position in chronology
CDLJ 2012/1 §4.56
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 P416422)
Transliteration
1(disz) masz2 a-dara4 4(disz) ud5 dara4# 1(disz) sila4 ga a-udu hur#-sag# 3(disz) masz-da3 1(disz) amar# masz-da3 ba-usz2 u4 1(u) 6(disz)-kam ki lu2-dingir-ra-ta ur-nigar szu ba-ti iti masz-da3-gu7 mu us2-sa ki-masz u3 hu-ur5-ti ba-[hul]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2012/1 §4.56. 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 (P416422) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P416422..
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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.