Position in chronology
YOS 13, 007
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P429714.
Why it matters
Transliteration
_1(barig) sze_ sza a-na _nig2-ar3-ra_ ma-asz-ti-it _e2#_ is-sa-am-du _zi-ga_ sza _nig2-szu_ szu-bu-ul-tum _iti bara2-za3-gar u4 6(disz)-kam_ _mu_ am-mi-di-ta-na _lugal-e kar-utu-a gu2 zimbir-ta bad3-da bi2-in-du3-a_
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — YOS 13, 007. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (P429714) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P429714..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.