Position in chronology
MVN 18, 593
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P119954.
Transliteration
[x gurusz] u4 1(disz)-[sze3] gurx(|SZE.KIN|)-a zar3 tab-ba u3 a-da gub-ba ki bi2-du11-ga-ta kiszib3 a-gu-gu a-sza3 ki-BAD u3 gi-apin-ba-zi [mu us2]-sa# an-sza-[an ba-hul] [...] [dub]-sar# [dumu] da-[da?]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 18, 593. 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: Montserrat Museum, Barcelona, Spain (P119954) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P119954..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.