Position in chronology
CDLJ 2015/3 §2.29
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 P404808)
Transliteration
1(disz) sila4 en-lil2 1(disz) sila4 nin-lil2 mu-kux(DU) szesz-da-da sanga zabar-dab5 maszkim 2(disz) ab2 1(u) la2 1(disz@t) udu 1(disz) u8 1(disz) sila4 7(disz) masz2 2(disz) ud5 szu-gid2 e2-muhaldim-sze3 2(disz) dusu2-munus ba-usz2 e2-kiszib3-ba-sze3 zi-ga u4 2(u) 7(disz)-kam iti ezem-mah mu szul-gi lugal-e ur-bi2-lum lu-lu-bu si-mu-ru-um u3 kar2-har asz-sze3 sagdu-bi szu-bur2-a bi2-ra-a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2015/3 §2.29. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y1 — Šulgi became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Oriental Museum, University of Durham, Durham, UK (P404808) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P404808..
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.