Position in chronology
Nimrud NW Palace S-26 = RIMA 2.0.101.023, ex. 126 (b)
Not yet translated
This tablet is catalogued, but no published translation exists yet. Our translation engine works through the untranslated corpus every night, oldest first — this page will update the day its turn comes. If you are a specialist and can read it, we would love your help.
From the same catalogue range (near P427383)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Neo-Assyrian (ca. 911-612 BC)) — Nimrud NW Palace S-26 = RIMA 2.0.101.023, ex. 126 (b). No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Nimrud fragment no. 61 (a); VII-A-8 + Nimrud 61 (b) (Nimrud, Iraq (a); Manchester University, Museum, Manchester, UK (b)) — from Kalhu (mod. Nimrud) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P427383). source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P427383..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.