Position in chronology
RINAP 5/1 Ashurbanipal 003, ex. 062 ?
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P422846.
Transliteration
[...]-la#-tu2# [x x] [...] _eme#_-szu2-un asz2#-[x x] [x x]-t,a# _kusz_-[x x] [...] qe2-reb nina#[] [...]-s,i id-du-szu2#-[x] [...] as-[x] [...] _szesz#-mesz_-szu2 sza du-na#-[x] [...]-a#-a a-ni#-[x] [...] u2#-nak#-[x] [...] x x [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Neo-Assyrian (ca. 911-612 BC)) — RINAP 5/1 Ashurbanipal 003, ex. 062 ?. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P422846) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P422846..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.