Position in chronology
CDLJ 2015/3 §2.31
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 P404810)
Transliteration
1(disz) masz2 szesz-zi-mu 1(disz) sila4 puzur4-esz18-dar 1(disz) sila4 kal-la 2(disz) sila4 nu-i3-da 2(disz) sila4 zabar-dab5! 1(disz) sila4 ur-suen# dumu-lugal 2(disz) sila4 ensi2 nibru mu-kux(DU) iti szu-esz5-sza mu si-mu-ru-um u3 lu-lu-bu a-ra2 1(u) la2 1(disz@t)-kam-asz ba-hul u4 2(u) 4(disz)-kam
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2015/3 §2.31. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Oriental Museum, University of Durham, Durham, UK (P404810) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P404810..
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.