Position in chronology
Stone cuneiform tablet with building-dedicatory inscription of Nabû-balassu-iqbi MET ME56 81 53
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: Wikimedia Commons file: File:Stone cuneiform tablet with building-dedicatory inscription of Nabû-balassu-iqbi MET ME56 81 53.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AStone_cuneiform_tablet_with_building-dedicatory_inscription_of_Nab%C3%BB-balassu-iqbi_MET_ME56_81_53.jpg. Description: Babylonian (?); Cuneiform tablet; Stone-Tablets-Inscribed
Why it matters
Transliteration
Scholarly note
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Babylonian (?); Cuneiform tablet; Stone-Tablets-Inscribed
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:Stone cuneiform tablet with building-dedicatory inscription of Nabû-balassu-iqbi MET ME56 81 53.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AStone_cuneiform_tablet_with_building-dedicatory_inscription_of_Nab%C3%BB-balassu-iqbi_MET_ME56_81_53.jpg. Description: Babylonian (?); Cuneiform tablet; Stone-Tablets-Inscribed.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.