Position in chronology
SANTAG 6, 265
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 P211887)
Transliteration
1(u) 4(disz) tug2 usz-bar 1(disz) tug2 usz-bar tur 1(gesz2) [...] 1(u) 7(disz) tug2 u2 kal 2(u) 1(disz) tug2 u2 muru13 1(u) 1(disz) tug2 u2 tur 1(u) tug2 mug kal 8(disz) tug2 mug muru13 1(disz) tug2 mug tur 3(disz) tug2 gu2 ansze tug2-ba sza3 a-pi4-sal4 gu2-de3-na u3 musz-bi-an-na tug2-ba geme2 ARAD2-da ki i3-kal-la-ta kiszib3 ur-nun-gal mu si-ma-num2 ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — SANTAG 6, 265. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (P211887) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P211887..
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.