Clay tablet. The Akkadian cuneiform inscription mentions the jewelry names in honor of the city of Babylon. From Babylon, Iraq. C. 600 BCE. Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin

Translation · reference

Experimental

Source: Wikimedia Commons file: File:Clay tablet. The Akkadian cuneiform inscription mentions the jewelry names in honor of the city of Babylon. From Babylon, Iraq. C. 600 BCE. Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AClay_tablet._The_Akkadian_cuneiform_inscription_mentions_the_jewelry_names_in_honor_of_the_city_of_Babylon._From_Babylon%2C_Iraq._C._600_BCE._Vorderasiatisches_Museum%2C_Berlin.jpg. Description: Clay tablet. The Akkadian cuneiform inscription mentions the jewelry names in honor of the city of Babylon. From Babylon, Iraq. Neo-Babylonian period, c. 600 BCE. Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin.

Why it matters

Transliteration

Scholarly note

Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Clay tablet. The Akkadian cuneiform inscription mentions the jewelry names in honor of the city of Babylon. From Babylon, Iraq. Neo-Babylonian period, c. 600 BCE. Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin.

Attribution

Image: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg) — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:Clay tablet. The Akkadian cuneiform inscription mentions the jewelry names in honor of the city of Babylon. From Babylon, Iraq. C. 600 BCE. Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AClay_tablet._The_Akkadian_cuneiform_inscription_mentions_the_jewelry_names_in_honor_of_the_city_of_Babylon._From_Babylon%2C_Iraq._C._600_BCE._Vorderasiatisches_Museum%2C_Berlin.jpg. Description: Clay tablet. The Akkadian cuneiform inscription mentions the jewelry names in honor of the city of Babylon. From Babylon, Iraq. Neo-Babylonian period, c. 600 BCE. Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin..

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet

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.

~3500 BCE

Kish Tablet

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.

~2450 BCE

Stele of the Vultures

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.