Position in chronology
RINAP 5/1 Ashurbanipal 003, ex. 146 ?
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.
From the same catalogue range (near P419706)
Transliteration
[...]-ki?-pi#? [...] [...] tukul#?-ti# an-szar2 u 1(u)-5(disz)# ik#?-[...] [...] _na4#-mesz nig2-szu e2-gal_-szu2 [...] [...] _ansze#-kur-ra#-[...]_ [...] x x? [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Neo-Assyrian (ca. 911-612 BC)) — RINAP 5/1 Ashurbanipal 003, ex. 146 ?. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P419706) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P419706..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.