Position in chronology
Tavolette 098
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P131883.
Transliteration
1(disz) asz2-gar3 a-dara4#? u4-nu2-a-ka e2-gal-la ba-an-kux(KWU147) a-bi2-si2-im-ti ki lu2-dingir-ra-ta ba-zi iti u4 2(u) 6(disz) ba-zal iti ezem-nin-a-zu mu sza-asz-ru ba-hul 1(disz)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Tavolette 098. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Amar-Suen y6 — Šašru destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Museo di Antichità di Torino, Turin, Italy (P131883) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P131883..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.