Position in chronology
UCP 09-02-1, 047
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P135951.
Transliteration
2(barig) sze lugal sza3-gal kunga2 ki ARAD2-ta ur-gug4 szu ba-ti iti min-esz3 mu us2-sa an-sza-an ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — UCP 09-02-1, 047. 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: Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA (P135951) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P135951..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.