Position in chronology
HSS 68, 112
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P406880.
Transliteration
[n] udu [n] u8 [n] sila4 ba-usz2 u4 [n-kam] ki# a-hu-we-[er-ta] szul-gi-iri-mu szu ba-ti iti ki-siki#-[nin-a-zu] mu [hu-uh2-nu]-ri ba-hul [n] udu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — HSS 68, 112. 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 (P406880) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P406880..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.