Position in chronology
TCBI 2/2, 37
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 P381691)
Transliteration
1(disz) 1/2(disz) sar 2/3(disz)# gin2#? gurusz-bi 1(u) 3(disz)-am3# 5/6(disz) sar 5(disz) lu2-suen 5/6(disz) sar 5(disz) lu2-si4 1(disz) sar 7(disz) 1/2(disz) gin2 a-sza3# gurusz#-[bi n] lu2-isin2# [...] [...]-ne [...]-tum gurum2-ak sza3 ki-kiri6-gibil-gu-la giri3 ARAD2-mu iti ab-e3 u4 8(disz) ba-zal
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — TCBI 2/2, 37. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Banca d'Italia, Rome, Italy (P381691) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P381691..
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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.