Position in chronology
KKS 43b
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P359981.
Transliteration
[um-ma sza] ki#-ma? ku-a-ti2 [a-na?] puzur4#-a-szur3 [...] [...] [...] zi#-mu-a-a [_dumu?_ a]-szur#-i-mi3-ti2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Assyrian (ca. 1950-1850 BC)) — KKS 43b. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Prague I 758 (Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic) — from Kanesh (mod. Kültepe) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P359981). source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P359981..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.