Position in chronology
NATN 439
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P121137.
Transliteration
4(barig) sze-ba ab-ba-du10-[ga] 3(ban2) iszkur-an-dul3 2(ban2) lu2-sza-lim ARAD2 i3-du8 2(barig) szesz-ki-lu5 2(ban2) ud5-da-gi-re 3(ban2) mu masz2 a-sza3-ga-sze3 ur2-ra-ni-du10 sze-ba iti szu-esz5-sza 3(ban2) sze-ba ki-lu5-la [x] 1(ban2) lu2#-kal-la 1(barig) ur-ki-gu-la 1(barig) da-a-a-ti sze-ba iti ezem-mah sza3 iti szu-esz5-sza-ka szu-ti-a guru7 du6-sa-bar-ra-ta mu us2-sa [bad3] mar-tu ba-du3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NATN 439. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y38 — Year after: The Amorite wall was built based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P121137) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P121137..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.