HSS 68, 125

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P406893

Translation — curated editorial

Editorial

Experimental

Editorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P406893.

Transliteration

3(disz) udu
1(disz) u8
1(disz) masz2 ga
ba-usz2 u4 1(u) 7(disz)-kam
ki na-lu5-ta
ur-nigar
szu ba-ti
iti masz-da3-gu7
mu us2-sa ur-bi2-lum ba-hul

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — HSS 68, 125. 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 (P406893) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P406893..

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The earliest historical document in human history.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.