Position in chronology
HLC 162 (pl. 103)
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 P110037)
Transliteration
2(ban2) zi3-gu lugal u4 4(disz)-kam ARAD2-mu aga3-us2-gal 2(ban2) zi3 u4 4(disz)-kam an-ne2-ba-du7 dumu nu-banda3 igi-du udu ur4-da-me 3(barig) ninda mar lugal u4 4(disz)-kam puzur4-esz-dar szagina udu ur4-de3 tusz-a 5(disz) sila3 siki sza3-iri a-da-a sukkal 1(barig) dabin elam ki-masz-me giri3 a-da-a sukkal ki-masz-ta du-ni iti sze-sag11-ku5
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — HLC 162 (pl. 103). No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA (P110037) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P110037..
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.