Position in chronology
Assyrian Cuneiform Script - 36424080021
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: Wikimedia Commons file: File:Assyrian Cuneiform Script - 36424080021.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAssyrian_Cuneiform_Script_-_36424080021.jpg. Description: Assyrian Cuneiform Script - 36424080021 Mesopotamia 1500-539 BC Gallery, British Museum, London, England, UK. Complete indexed photo collection at WorldHistoryPics.com. Limestone memorial stele or tablet of Tukulti-Ninurta I, King of Assyri
Why it matters
Transliteration
Scholarly note
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Assyrian Cuneiform Script - 36424080021 Mesopotamia 1500-539 BC Gallery, British Museum, London, England, UK. Complete indexed photo collection at WorldHistoryPics.com. Limestone memorial stele or tab
Attribution
Image: Gary Todd — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:Assyrian Cuneiform Script - 36424080021.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAssyrian_Cuneiform_Script_-_36424080021.jpg. Description: Assyrian Cuneiform Script - 36424080021 Mesopotamia 1500-539 BC Gallery, British Museum, London, England, UK. Complete indexed photo collection at WorldHistoryPics.com. Limestone memorial stele or tablet of Tukulti-Ninurta I, King of Assyri.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.