Position in chronology
TRU 230
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P134994.
Transliteration
1(disz) ud5 szimaszgi# ba-usz2 sza3 u3-[tu-da] u4 8(disz)-[kam] giri3 nig2-mu-mu-kal-le ra2-gaba! ki tu-ra-am-[]da-[gan] szul-gi-iri-[mu] szu ba-ti iti ezem-me-[ki-gal2] mu en-[unu6-gal ]inanna ba-hun 1(disz) udu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — TRU 230. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Amar-Suen y4 — En-unugal of Inanna installed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Institut Catholique, Paris, France (P134994) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P134994..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.