Position in chronology
AnOr 01, 041
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P101032.
Transliteration
4(ban2) dabin lugal iti szu-numun 3(ban2) dabin iti dal [...] 1(barig) dabin iti DISZ szu#? gurusz nig2-ka x-su-ta [x]-sa6#?-ga? [szu] ba#?-ti mu us2-sa puzur4-da-gan ba-du3 lu2#-sa6-ga# dub-sar# dumu# utu-ge6 kuruszda
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AnOr 01, 041. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France (P101032) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P101032..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.