RIME 4.04.01.03, ex. add373

~1950 BCE·Old Babylonian·P460917

Translation · reference

Experimental

Source: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P460917.

Why it matters

Transliteration

suen-ga-szi-id
nita kal-ga
lugal unu-ga
lugal am-na-nu-um
u2#-a
[e2-an]-na
[e2]-gal
[nam-lugal-la]-ka#-ni
[mu]-du3

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Early Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1900 BC)) — RIME 4.04.01.03, ex. add373. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P460917) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P460917..

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The earliest historical document in human history.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.