Position in chronology
Triangle geometrical tablet Ashmolean 1931 91
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: Wikimedia Commons file: File:Triangle geometrical tablet Ashmolean 1931 91.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ATriangle_geometrical_tablet_Ashmolean_1931_91.jpg. Description: Clay tablet with geometrical diagram of a triangle. Calculation of the area of the triangle, but the scribe got it wrong, cf. Robson, "Mathematical cuneiform tablets in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford", SCIAMVS 05 pp 40-41. Tablet from Kish. A
Why it matters
Transliteration
Scholarly note
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Clay tablet with geometrical diagram of a triangle. Calculation of the area of the triangle, but the scribe got it wrong, cf. Robson, "Mathematical cuneiform tablets in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford",
Attribution
Image: Zunkir — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:Triangle geometrical tablet Ashmolean 1931 91.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ATriangle_geometrical_tablet_Ashmolean_1931_91.jpg. Description: Clay tablet with geometrical diagram of a triangle. Calculation of the area of the triangle, but the scribe got it wrong, cf. Robson, "Mathematical cuneiform tablets in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford", SCIAMVS 05 pp 40-41. Tablet from Kish. A.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.