Position in chronology
RINAP 5/1 Ashurbanipal 003, ex. 129 ?
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.
Transliteration
[...] x [...] [...] du#-na#-[x] [...] _ugu# iri#_ gam#-bu#-li# [...]-u szil-la-tu2 _gal#_-ti [...]-szu2-un asz2-lu#-up# [...] _kusz#_-szu2-un# [...] ni-na#-a [...]-s,i#? id-du?-szu2-ma it,-x-bu-hu-usz as-lisz [...]-szu2 sza2 du-na-nu [...]-ir# _uzu-mesz_-szu2-nu u2-nak#-kis# [...] ta#-mar-ti ma-ti-tan [...] en-kar-ir# [...] _gu2-en-na#_ [...] ur#-ta-ki id#-[x x]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Neo-Assyrian (ca. 911-612 BC)) — RINAP 5/1 Ashurbanipal 003, ex. 129 ?. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA (P392214) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P392214..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.