Position in chronology
MVN 18, 739
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P120100.
Why it matters
Transliteration
[...] x [...] masz# a-sza3-bi [...] gin2 ku3-babbar [... x-]nin-urta [mu bad3 ma-da ba]-du3? lugal-e2-mah#-[e] dub#-sar# [dumu] lugal#-ku3-ga-[ni]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 18, 739. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y30 — The frontier wall was built based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Montserrat Museum, Barcelona, Spain (P120100) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P120100..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.