Position in chronology
OB Legal 083
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P258996.
Transliteration
_1(disz) gin2 igi-6(disz)-gal2 ku3-babbar na4_ utu a-na _sa10 i3-gesz_ _ki_ ip-qu2-an-nu-ni-tum _dumu_ ib-ni-utu []zimbir-li#-wi#-ir _ma2-lah5_ _igi#_ be-el#-szu#-nu# _dumu_ e-tel-pi4-na-bi-[um] _igi_ ARAD#-ku-bi _dumu_ utu-na-s,i-ir _iti udru u4 1(u) 5(disz)-kam_ _mu#_ am-mi-s,a-du-qa2# _lugal alan-a-ni masz2 igi-du8-a szu-a an-da-gal2-la_ _kiszib3#_ zimbir-li#-wi-ir _kiszib3_ be-el-szu-nu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — OB Legal 083. 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 (P258996) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P258996..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.