Position in chronology
VS 26, 131
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P358269.
Why it matters
Transliteration
3(disz) 1/2(disz) _gin2 ku3-babbar_ _ki_ dingir-szu-dan i-na bu-u2-la2-ti2-szu al-qe2 _igi_ a-szur3-i-di2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Assyrian (ca. 1950-1850 BC)) — VS 26, 131. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (P358269) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P358269..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.