Position in chronology
OSP 1, 052
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P216109.
Transliteration
[...] ninda asz-dar-bad3 1(gesz2) 3(u) lu2 umma 3(u) dumu dub-sar 3(u) x x x 4(u) ugula adab 2(u) [...]-ur-gal 2(u) ur-nin-gir2-su 2(u) tu-tu 2(u) ne-sag 2(u) dumu ar3-tu 3(u) ur-sag-utu 2(u) szu-i? u4 1(u) 1(asz) iti szu-numun
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OSP 1, 052. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P216109) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P216109..
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.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.