Position in chronology
UIL 1
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 P235777)
Transliteration
1(disz) masz2 ga u4-da gaba-ri-a a-sza3 ka-ma-ri2 ki ur-ab-ba-saga-ta giri3 szesz-kal-la kiszib3 a-kal-la mu us2-sa sza-asz-ru-um a-ra2 2(disz@t)-kam-asz ba-hul a-kal-la dub-sar dumu ur-nigar szusz3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — UIL 1. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Charlotte M. Smith Collection of Miniature Books, University Libraries, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA (P235777) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P235777..
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.