HSS 04, 132

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P110405

Translation — curated editorial

Editorial

Experimental

Editorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P110405.

Transliteration

2(asz) 1(barig) dabin gur# lugal#
e2-kikken2 gu-la-ta?
ki lu2-nin-szubur-ta
ur-ig-alim dumu lu2-gu-la
szu ba-ti
ga-esz-sze3
iti# ezem-dumu-zi
mu amar-suen sza-asz-ru-um ba-hul

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — HSS 04, 132. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (P110405) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P110405..

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet

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.

~3500 BCE

Kish Tablet

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.

~2450 BCE

Stele of the Vultures

The earliest historical document in human history.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.