Position in chronology
Mesopotamian - Mesopotamian Tablet - Walters 481803 - View A
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: Wikimedia Commons file: File:Mesopotamian - Mesopotamian Tablet - Walters 481803 - View A.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMesopotamian_-_Mesopotamian_Tablet_-_Walters_481803_-_View_A.jpg. Description: This tablet has a cuneiform inscription on two faces, was blackened in baking, and is broken in two parts. It was repaired in 1957 and may be a forgery.
Why it matters
Transliteration
Scholarly note
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: This tablet has a cuneiform inscription on two faces, was blackened in baking, and is broken in two parts. It was repaired in 1957 and may be a forgery.
Attribution
Image: Anonymous ( Mesopotamia ) Unknown author — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:Mesopotamian - Mesopotamian Tablet - Walters 481803 - View A.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMesopotamian_-_Mesopotamian_Tablet_-_Walters_481803_-_View_A.jpg. Description: This tablet has a cuneiform inscription on two faces, was blackened in baking, and is broken in two parts. It was repaired in 1957 and may be a forgery..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.