Position in chronology
HSS 10, 008
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P213274.
Why it matters
Transliteration
en#-ma ur-sa6 a-na i3-li2 qi2-bi2-ma mi-nam ta2-mu-ur-ma 'a3-i-sa _lunga#_ _bappir gig#?_ u-su-s,i#-[ma] ta2-asz2-ta2-pu#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — HSS 10, 008. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (P213274) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P213274..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.