Position in chronology
POAT 64
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P361177.
Why it matters
Transliteration
[...] x a x [...] [...] ka3-il5!-szu x [...] [...] a na x [...] [...] gesz GA [...] [...] x [...] [...] ta-asz2-ku x [...] [...] x a na [...] [...] x _ki_ szum [...] [...] ir x x [...] [...] a x [...] [...] a-di2-na-kum#? [...] [...] na ku? ma [...] [...] ak? la2 [...] [...] la2 [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Assyrian (ca. 1950-1850 BC)) — POAT 64. 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 (P361177) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P361177..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.