Cuneiform tablet case impressed with four cylinder seals, for cuneiform tablet 66.245.15a- quittance MET DP-13441-007

Translation · reference

Experimental

Source: Wikimedia Commons file: File:Cuneiform tablet case impressed with four cylinder seals, for cuneiform tablet 66.245.15a- quittance MET DP-13441-007.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACuneiform_tablet_case_impressed_with_four_cylinder_seals%2C_for_cuneiform_tablet_66.245.15a-_quittance_MET_DP-13441-007.jpg. Description: Old Assyrian Trading Colony; Cuneiform tablet case; Clay-Tablets-Inscribed-Seal Impressions

Why it matters

Transliteration

Scholarly note

Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Old Assyrian Trading Colony; Cuneiform tablet case; Clay-Tablets-Inscribed-Seal Impressions

Attribution

Image: This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art . See the Image and Data Resources Open Access Policy — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:Cuneiform tablet case impressed with four cylinder seals, for cuneiform tablet 66.245.15a- quittance MET DP-13441-007.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACuneiform_tablet_case_impressed_with_four_cylinder_seals%2C_for_cuneiform_tablet_66.245.15a-_quittance_MET_DP-13441-007.jpg. Description: Old Assyrian Trading Colony; Cuneiform tablet case; Clay-Tablets-Inscribed-Seal Impressions.

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet

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.

~3500 BCE

Kish Tablet

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.

~2450 BCE

Stele of the Vultures

The earliest historical document in human history.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.