Position in chronology
CDLJ 2007/1 §3.31
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 P368383)
Transliteration
2(disz) udu niga 4(disz)-kam us2 a2 ge6-ba-a 2(disz) udu niga 4(disz)-kam us2 a2# u4#-te#-na iszkur sza3 karkar giri3 ma-szum sagi u4 2(u) 1(disz)-kam# giri3 a-ba-en-lil2-gin7 ki puzur4-en-lil2-ta ba-zi giri3 ur-en-lil2-la2 szar2-ra-ab-du iti ezem-szu-suen mu en inanna# unu-ga# masz-e i3-pa3 4(disz) udu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2007/1 §3.31. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Ur-Nammu y16 — The en-priestess of Inanna of Uruk was chosen based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Kalamazoo Valley Museum, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA (P368383) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P368383..
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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.