Position in chronology
OSP 1, 113
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P221620.
Transliteration
dumu i-bi2-lum 1(esze3@c) lugal-gaba nu-kiri6 1(esze3@c) lugal-sza3 szuku?-bi an-DU GAN2 en-lil2#-[kam] GAN2 mah[] apin-la2-[am6?] ur-nin-[...] mu-[gid2]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — OSP 1, 113. 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 (P221620) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P221620..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.