Position in chronology
JAC 29, 023-030 05
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P478825.
Why it matters
Transliteration
igi suen-x-x igi u-bar-x igi ut-ma-tum igi su-bu-um igi du-si-sza mu ha-am-mu-ra-pi2 lugal in-pa3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — JAC 29, 023-030 05. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Hammurabi y1 — Hammurabi became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: private: anonymous, Jerusalem (P478825) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P478825..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.