Position in chronology
MSL 12, 091, N 3585+
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.
The world it comes from
Hammurabi, the Epic of Gilgamesh, mathematics.
From the same catalogue range (near P228170)
Transliteration
[...] = %a x# ZI? [(x)] [...]-x# = %a ra-bu-u2 [...]-ra# = %a kab-tu4# [...]-ra = %a ar-ku-u2 egir# = %a MIN<(ar-ku-u2)> [...]-INANNA = %a sza tak-lim-ti# [...]-INANNA = %a sza nin-da-bi [...]-a = %a sza-an-da-bak-ku# [...] = %a [x]-x#-ru?-u2?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — MSL 12, 091, N 3585+. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Arkeoloji Müzeleri, Istanbul, Turkey; University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P228170) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P228170..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.