Position in chronology
UET 3, 1063
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P137388.
Transliteration
5(disz) muhaldim dub-la2-mah 5(disz) gudu4 szu-nir szesz?-gal 5(disz) sila3 i3-ta i3-bi 5(ban2) sze-ba-sze3 szu ba-an-ti giri3 lu2-dingir-ra szesz-gal nam-1(u) iti szu-esz5-sza mu us2-sa# bad3 gal ba-du3-a <<mu-us2-sa bad2 gal ba-du3-a>> [mu] us2-sa-bi lu2-dingir-ra ARAD2 nanna dumu ur2?-[x]-tur
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — UET 3, 1063. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P137388) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P137388..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.