Position in chronology
HSS 68, 163
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P407059.
Transliteration
2(gesz2) 5(u)# [2(disz) udu] 3(u) u8 5(u) 7(disz)# masz2 szu-gid2 ki na-lu5-ta mu-kux(DU) ur-ku3-nun-na i3-dab5 iti masz-da3-gu7 mu us2-sa ur-bi#-lum ba#-[hul] 4(gesz2) 2(u) la2 1(disz@t)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — HSS 68, 163. 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 (P407059) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P407059..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.