Position in chronology
UCP 10-01, 081
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P248077.
Why it matters
Transliteration
_3(barig) 2(ban2) gur# sze_ hu-bu-ta-tum _ki_ dingir-szu-na-s,ir u3 nanna-arhusz a-hi-ku-lu-x _dumu_ [...] _szu ba-an#-[ti]_ [a-na masz-kan2]-nim [sze-a-am] _i3-ag2-e_ _igi_ a-bu-um-dingir utu-na-s,ir ri-isz-sin u3 mu-na-nu-um _dub-sar_ _mu e2_ esz18-dar _ba-dim2_
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Early Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1900 BC)) — UCP 10-01, 081. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA (P248077) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P248077..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.