Position in chronology
CDLJ 2012/1 §4.35
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 P416435)
Transliteration
1(disz) udu# niga a-mur-dingir lu2# kin-gi4-a li-ba-nu-ug-sza-ba-asz ensi2 mar-ha-szi# giri3 lu2-da#-mu sukkal 1(disz) masz2-gal niga gu-ra#-a lu2 ur-szu 1(disz) udu niga e2-um lu2 ma-[ri2] giri3# bi2-li2-a sukkal ARAD2-mu maszkim iti u4 1(u) 6(disz) ba-zal ki szul-gi-a-a-mu-ta ba-zi iti u5-bi2-gu7 mu us2-sa gu-za en-lil2-la2 ba-dim2 3(disz) udu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CDLJ 2012/1 §4.35. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Ur-Nammu y15 — Year after: The throne of Enlil was fashioned based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, USA (P416435) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P416435..
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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.