Position in chronology
HLC 046 (pl. 070)
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P109924.
Transliteration
5(disz) gurusz 7(disz) SIG7-a 4(disz) du3-a-ku5 7(disz) he2-dab5 2(disz) he2-dab5 nu dab-ba kiri6 gu3-de2-a 4(disz) SIG7-a 1(disz) gurusz 2(disz) du3-a-ku5 kiri6 ur-dun kiszib3 lu2-nin-hur!#-sag! iti ezem-szul-gi u4 1(u) 1(disz) ba-zal mu ki-masz ba-hul lu2-nin-hur-sag dumu nam?-[ha-ni?] nu!-banda3# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — HLC 046 (pl. 070). No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA (P109924) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P109924..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.