Position in chronology
YOS 15, 203
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 P414566)
Transliteration
2(ban2) 5(disz)# 1/3(disz) sila3 5(disz) gin2 i3-nun 2(ban2)# []haszhur-had2 1(barig) zu2-lum bala-sze3 1(ban2) 1(disz) sila3 i3-nun 1(u) ma-na siki ud5 2(disz) 1/2(disz) sila3 i3-gesz nig2-dab5 ezem e2-iti-6(disz)# ki ur-szul-pa#-e3#-ta# kiszib3 lu2-nin-szubur-ta iti szu-numun-na mu ma2 en-ki ba-ab-du8 gaba-ri sza3 kiszib3-ba
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — YOS 15, 203. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri, USA (permanent loan from Missouri School of Religion [formerly “Bible College of Missouri”], Jefferson City, Missouri) (P414566) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P414566..
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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.