Position in chronology
Cuneiform tablet- slave hire contract, Egibi archive MET ME86 11 173
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: Wikimedia Commons file: File:Cuneiform tablet- slave hire contract, Egibi archive MET ME86 11 173.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACuneiform_tablet-_slave_hire_contract%2C_Egibi_archive_MET_ME86_11_173.jpg. Description: Achaemenid; Cuneiform tablet; Clay-Tablets-Inscribed
Why it matters
Transliteration
Scholarly note
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Achaemenid; Cuneiform tablet; Clay-Tablets-Inscribed
Attribution
Image: This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art . See the Image and Data Resources Open Access Policy — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:Cuneiform tablet- slave hire contract, Egibi archive MET ME86 11 173.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACuneiform_tablet-_slave_hire_contract%2C_Egibi_archive_MET_ME86_11_173.jpg. Description: Achaemenid; Cuneiform tablet; Clay-Tablets-Inscribed.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.