Position in chronology
MVN 18, 443
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P119804.
Transliteration
[...] gur ur-nigar [...] gur lugal-ma2-gur8-re [...] gur szara2-i3-zu [x] nu#-banda3 [...] gur# ur-ba-ba6 [...] TUL2-te-uz#? [x] 2(asz) 4(barig) gur# [x]-da-[...] [x] 5(ban2) gur x-[...] x SIG7-[...] [...] gur szara2-zi-da# [...] gur lugal-an-ne2 [...] gur# ur-e2-mah [...] gur# lu2-szer7-gal2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 18, 443. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Montserrat Museum, Barcelona, Spain (P119804) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P119804..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.