Position in chronology
CDLJ 2006/2 §03
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 P273411)
Transliteration
3(disz) sila4 1(u) 7(disz) masz2# sza3 uri5-ma u4 3(u) la2 1(disz@t)-kam ki ab-ba-sa6-ga-ta na-lu5 i3-dab5 iti ki-siki-nin-a-zu mu en nanna ba-hun 2(u)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2006/2 §03. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y15 — The en-priest of Nanna was installed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Odum Library, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, Georgia, USA (P273411) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P273411..
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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.