Position in chronology
SF 002
About this tablet
This small, lenticular clay tablet from Šuruppak (modern Fara, southern Iraq) dates to around 2600–2500 BCE, placing it among the oldest written objects in existence. It appears to be a lexical or literary list cataloguing a series of compound terms built around 'e-lum' — a plant product or cultic offering whose exact identity remains debated — each qualified by a different epithet or attribute. The repeating enumeration is characteristic of the school and literary texts found at Šuruppak, where scribes trained by copying lists of terms, names, and sacred epithets. The closing entry, 'Mistress of [the sea], of Anzû,' introduces a divine figure or cultic title, hinting that the list has a religious or ceremonial dimension beyond mere vocabulary drill.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet catalogues a series of archaic compound terms, most built around 'e-lum' — perhaps a sacred plant product, incense, or ritual offering. It opens with what reads as a heading or first entry: 'The prayer/incantation of the mountain-land, surpassing all others.' Then comes a sequence: 'e-lum that canopies the sky' — two lines in the middle are too damaged to read — 'e-lum of the true crown,' then 'the house (temple) whose interior covers the sky like a canopy of honey,' then 'e-lum, with prayer beside it.' The list closes with a divine or cultic title: 'Mistress of the [sea / cattle-stall], of Anzû.' This is a ritualistic enumeration — a scribe's careful cataloguing of sacred names and things.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our enginešud₃ of the mountain-land, surpassing [all others] e-lum that covers [the sky?] [...] [...] toward/of [barley?] [...] [...] (broken) e-lum of the righteous/true crown The house (temple) whose interior canopies the sky — (sweet as) honey e-lum with [prayer?] beside it Mistress of [the sea / cattle-stall], of Anzû
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
sud3-kur-ra-diri e-lum-[an?]-dul3-[(...)] [...]-sze3-[...] [...] e-lum-aga3-zi e2-sza3-an-dul3-lal3 e-lum-szud3#?-da nin-AB-anzux(MI)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — SF 002. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (P010567) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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.