Position in chronology
RINAP 5/1 Ashurbanipal 009, ex. 066
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P452929.
Transliteration
[...]-tu#? [...]-uz# [...]-ru#-u-ti [...]-it,# u4-mu# [...] rak-bu#-[...] gi-mir#-[...] u3 at-tu#-[...] ina tukul-ti [...] ina s,i-is,-[...] it#-ti ta-mar#-[...] i-na szal-szi ger#-[...] _lugal#_ man-na-[...] [x] qi2#-bit# an-szar2 [...] [...] x x [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Neo-Assyrian (ca. 911-612 BC)) — RINAP 5/1 Ashurbanipal 009, ex. 066. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P452929) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P452929..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.