Position in chronology
UET 6, 0666
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P346703.
Transliteration
[]en#-ki-ke4 lugal# [...] asal-lu2-hi dumu [...] [x]-zu ka-zu giri3-zu [...] [an]-gin7# he2-em-ku3-ge ki#?-[gin7 ...] [sza3 an]-na#-gin7 he2-em-dadag#-[ge] ka#-inim-ma a-bar-ra-kam#?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — UET 6, 0666. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P346703) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P346703..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.