Position in chronology
UET 6, 0573
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P346610.
Transliteration
[...] x [...] [...] x gaz-gaz x [...] [...] x mu-un-da-la2-e#? [...] [...] ku3-sig17 gun3-gun3 u3#-[...] [...] nu-esz3 szu gur# nu-x-[...] [...] udu-utuwa2 masz al du11-e a-ba x [...] [...] gurusz#-e i-lu ni2-te-na x [...] [...] su8-ba ama-uszum-gal-an-na i-lu ni2-te-na x [...] [...]-x-en u4 ama-gu10 mu-un#?-[...] [...]-x-en u4 igi ba-ra#-[...] [...] x x [...] x x x [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — UET 6, 0573. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P346610) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P346610..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.