Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 135
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P005202.
Why it matters
Transliteration
[...] 2(N05) 2(N42~a) 1(N25) , |ZATU714xHI@g~a| [...] [...] 1(N01) , |DUG~cx1(N57)| [...] 1(N01) , [...] [...] 1(N01) , [...] X 4(N01)# , SZU2# [...] , ZATU753 [...] , [...] [...] , [...] X [...] 1(N52) , , |NI~a.RU|# GIBIL 2(N57) SU~a# [...] , [...] [...] 1(N01)# [...] ,
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 135. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P005202) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P005202..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.