RIME 4.01.04.07, ex. add18

~1950 BCE·Old Babylonian·P417230

Translation — curated editorial

Editorial

Experimental

Editorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P417230.

Transliteration

isz-me-da#-gan#
lugal ki-en-gi ki-uri-ra
u4 en-lil2-le
nin-urta
ur-sag kal-ga-ni
maszkim#-sze3#

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Early Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1900 BC)) — RIME 4.01.04.07, ex. add18. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (P417230) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P417230..

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The earliest historical document in human history.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.