Position in chronology
TSU 021
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P135192.
Why it matters
Transliteration
1(disz) [kusz ...] 1(disz) [kusz ...] 1(gesz2) kusz [...] 1(disz) kusz? gu4 [...] 1(disz) kusz ansze ur-kun#-[...] 1(disz) kusz ansze ur-nin-gesz-zi-da kusz gid2-da e2 szul-gi sza3 si? [x] mu an-sza#-[an] ba#-[hul]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — TSU 021. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y35 — Anšan destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels, Belgium (P135192) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P135192..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.