Position in chronology
SACT 2, 276
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 P129233)
Transliteration
[...] 3(disz) tug2 nig2-lam2 3(disz)-kam us2 1(u) la2 1(disz) tug2 nig2-lam2 4(disz)-kam us2 5(disz) tug2 guz-za 3(disz)-kam us2 4(u) tug2 guz-za 4(disz)-kam us2 2(u) 5(disz) tug2 guz-za du 1(u) 4(disz) tug2 gu2 ansze 2(u) 2(disz) tug2 mug muru13 1(disz) tug2 u2 ge6 muru13 2(disz) gada saga 1(u) 4(disz) gada du tug2 [ki-la2] tag-ga a-ra2 3(disz)-kam [ki ur]-nin-tu-ta [lu2]-kal-la in-la2 [i3]-kal-la szu ba-ti [mu] en nun-e en eridu ba-hun
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — SACT 2, 276. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Spurlock Museum, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA (P129233) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P129233..
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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.