Position in chronology
TMH NF 1-2, 132 + 135
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 P134444)
Transliteration
2(asz) sze gur lu2-inanna x tug2 nin-ma2-gur8-[re ...] [...] x ad-da-a dumu lugal-pa-e3 2(asz) gur la-la-a 5(asz) gur lugal-ma2-gur8-re HI-sar 2(asz) gur geme2-suen u3 a-du-ra-mu dumu-munus-ni 5(asz) gur kiszib3 ARAD2-en-lil2-la2 szunigin 1(u) 9(asz) sze gur sze ku3-sze3 sza3 kin-ma [...] x-sze3 [...] x-x-dam iti du6-ku3-ga mu e2 szara2 ba#-du3#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — TMH NF 1-2, 132 + 135. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Hilprecht Collection, University of Jena, Germany (P134444) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P134444..
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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.