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A curated narrative reconstruction of humanity's first great civilization, sourced from the tablets themselves. Open scholarship, beautifully accessible.

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Independent scholarship · No academic affiliation · No institutional funding · Tablet imagery attributed per item via CDLI, ETCSL, ORACC, Wikimedia, and public museum collections.

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Every tablet in the corpus — sortable by date, title or period; filterable by theme and period. Use the controls below or change the URL parameters directly.

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Religion & Myth Law Economy Astronomy & Mathematics Daily Life Writing & Literature

Period

Ubaid Uruk Period Early Dynastic Akkadian Empire Ur III · Neo-Sumerian Old Babylonian Old Assyrian Middle Babylonian Middle Assyrian Neo-Assyrian Neo-Babylonian Achaemenid Persian

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Editorial Sumerian literature Sumerian royal Assyrian royal Assyrian archives

27 of 102,257 tablets · 7 filters activeClear filters

1–27 of 27

~3500 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

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.

Writing & Literature

~3300 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

Clay tablet, late Uruk period, 3300-3100 BCE. Proto-cuneiform signs, food issue list " rations" written by combining a human head and a bowl. Purchased via Christie's in 1989, with contribution from the British Museum Friends

Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Clay tablet, late Uruk period, 3300-3100 BCE. Proto-cuneiform signs, food issue list " rations" written by combining a human head and a bowl (the triangular object…

Economy·Daily Life

~3200 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

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.

Writing & Literature·Economy

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 176

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 176. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 182

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 182. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 185

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 185. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 186

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 186. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000022, ex. 031

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000022, ex. 031. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000023, ex. 097

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000023, ex. 097. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical Archaic Unidentified, ex. 127

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical Archaic Unidentified, ex. 127. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical Archaic Unidentified, ex. 128

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical Archaic Unidentified, ex. 128. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

MS 2900/04

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2900/04. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

Trudy Otdela Vostoka 3 p. 27ff.:2

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — Trudy Otdela Vostoka 3 p. 27ff.:2. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Religion & Myth·Daily Life

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 177

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 177. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 178

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 178. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 179

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 179. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 180

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 180. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 181

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 181. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 187

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 187. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 189

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 189. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 190

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 190. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 192

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 192. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000023, ex. 001

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000023, ex. 001. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000023, ex. 095

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000023, ex. 095. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000023, ex. 096

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000023, ex. 096. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

CDLI Lexical 000265, ex. 011

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000265, ex. 011. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature

~3100 BCE·Uruk PeriodEditorial

MSVO 1, 243

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 243. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Writing & Literature