Position in chronology
TLB 03, 029
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 P134170)
Transliteration
1(disz) ab2 amar du3-a 2(disz) dug dida imgaga3 2(disz)-ta 1/2(disz)# nig2-la-la-asz x sze gur x ziz2 gur 1(u) sze sa sze 4(disz) dug za3-sze3-la2 gesztin ki utu en eridu hun-ga2 ensi2# gir2-su-ta [x] x en eridu hun-ga2 [x]-kam [x]-sa6#-ga sukkal [iti ezem]-me-ki-gal2 mu# e2 szara2# umma# ba-du3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — TLB 03, 029. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: de Liagre Böhl Collection, Netherlands Institute for the Near East, Leiden, Holland (P134170) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P134170..
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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.