Position in chronology
Prag 822
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P359377.
Why it matters
Transliteration
[...] _ku3#-babbar_ me-hi-[ra]-tim# [...]-x a-na [...]-x i-di2-in [um-ma] bu-za#-zu-ma [... ma]-na _ku3-babbar_ [szi2-im] pe3-er-di2 [u3 a]-mu-tim [...] um a x [...] [...] ni ku wa x [...]-za-ku-um [...]-x ta-tu3-ra-am [...] be-li2 a-ta [...] _gin2# ku3-babbar_
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Assyrian (ca. 1950-1850 BC)) — Prag 822. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic (P359377) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P359377..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.