Position in chronology
AAS 067
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P100055.
Transliteration
2(disz) 2/3(disz) ma-na 2(disz) gin2 la2 igi-6(disz)-gal2 ku3 ku3 zu2-lum-ma ki da-da-ga-ta a-kal-la szu ba-ti iti sze-sag11-ku5 mu us2-sa an-sza-an ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AAS 067. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y36 — Year after: Anšan destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P100055) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P100055..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.