Position in chronology
MVN 13, 127
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 P116899)
Transliteration
1(disz) sila4 en-lil2 1(disz) sila4 nin-lil2 mu-kux(DU) ur-suen dumu szesz-da-da sanga 1(disz) sila4 utu mu-kux(DU) lugal-a2-zi-da zabar-dab5 maszkim 1(u) 6(disz) u8 1(u) udu 1(u) la2 1(disz) masz2 2(disz) ud5 ba-usz2 e2-kiszib3-ba-sze3 2(disz) dusu2-munus ba-usz2 mu ur-gi7-ra-sze3 dingir-ba-ni sipa ur-ra-ke4 szu ba-ti zi-ga u4 3(u)-kam iti szu-esz-sza mu szul-gi lugal-e ur-bi2-lum lu-lu-bu si-mu-ru-um u3 karx(GAN2)-har 1(disz)-sze3 sag!-bi szu tibira#-a bi2-ra-a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 13, 127. 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: Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P116899) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P116899..
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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.