Position in chronology
EA 355
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P270854.
Why it matters
Transliteration
du du du du tu tu tu tu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu na na na na na sza sza sza sza an an an an an ud ud ud ud ud ud ud ni ni ni ni ni ni ki ki ki ki ki ki sar sar sar sar dub dub dub dub
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Middle Babylonian (ca. 1400-1100 BC)) — EA 355. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P270854) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P270854..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.