Position in chronology
UET 6, 0267
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P254867.
Transliteration
dub#-sar#-me#-[en] mu ni2#-[...] igi ni2-zu# [sag3]-ge# eg3#-ma#-al#? [...] SU3 USZ-ma# [...] dub-sar pe-el#?-[la2] lu2-mu7!?-mu7#!?-sze3# nar pe-el-la2 lu2#-gi-di-da-sze3 x pe-el-la2 di-bi-dal-dal-sze3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — UET 6, 0267. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P254867) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P254867..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.