Position in chronology
BSNS KN878
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P464928.
Why it matters
Transliteration
[n] i3 sila3 eme#-gi7# ur#-gesz dub-sar 6(disz) sila3 e2-abzu 6(disz)# sila3 ur-gesz [x x]-x NI 2(disz@t) mu# [n] iti#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — BSNS KN878. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Museum of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, Buffalo, New York, USA (P464928) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P464928..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.