Position in chronology
CST 709
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P108226.
Why it matters
Transliteration
1(asz) imgaga3 gur geszbun2 sze-sag11-ku5-sze3 ki lu2-inanna-ta nu-ur2-iszkur szu ba-ti kiszib3 ur-suen iti sze-sag11-ku5 mu si-mu-ru-um ba-hul ur-suen dub-sar dumu lu2-ga [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CST 709. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y23 — Simurrum destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK (P108226) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P108226..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.