Position in chronology
Cuneiform Foundation Tablet (4695995469)
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: Wikimedia Commons file: File:Cuneiform Foundation Tablet (4695995469).jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACuneiform_Foundation_Tablet_(4695995469).jpg. Description: Achaemenid Period (ca. 550 - 330 BCE) In the museum at Persepolis, Iran. A translation of the text appears in the next photo.
Why it matters
Transliteration
Scholarly note
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Achaemenid Period (ca. 550 - 330 BCE) In the museum at Persepolis, Iran. A translation of the text appears in the next photo.
Attribution
Image: A.Davey from Portland, Oregon, EE UU — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:Cuneiform Foundation Tablet (4695995469).jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACuneiform_Foundation_Tablet_(4695995469).jpg. Description: Achaemenid Period (ca. 550 - 330 BCE) In the museum at Persepolis, Iran. A translation of the text appears in the next photo..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.