Position in chronology
Ontario 2, 021
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P209631.
Transliteration
3(barig) 3(ban2) sze lugal sza3-gal gu4 niga e2-kikken-ta ki ARAD2-ta mu da-da-ga-sze3 a-du szu ba-ti iti sig4-i3-szub-ba-ga2-ra mu us2-sa ur-bi2-i3-lum ba-hul ku-li dub-sar dumu ur-ki-ag2-mu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Ontario 2, 021. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (P209631) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P209631..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.