Position in chronology
AAICAB 1/4, Bod S 472
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P330540.
Transliteration
4(disz) pisan im-sar-ra [...] a2-bi u4 2(disz) [...] im szuku-ra im libir gu4-apin ga2-ga2-de3# ki ur-szul-pa-e3-ta kiszib3 gu-u2-gu-a iti szu-numun mu ku3 gu#-za en-lil2-la2 ba-dim2# gu-u2-gu-a dub-sar dumu ma-an-szum2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AAICAB 1/4, Bod S 472. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P330540) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P330540..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.