POAT 70

~1900 BCE·Old Assyrian·P361183

Translation · reference

Experimental

Source: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P361183.

Why it matters

Transliteration

a-na a-szur-[...]
qi2# [...]
[...]
[...]
[...]
[...]
[...]
x ku [...] isz x [...]
x la2-[di2?]-in [...]
me [...] zi-ib [...]
x ma [...] x [...]

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Assyrian (ca. 1950-1850 BC)) — POAT 70. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P361183) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P361183..

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet

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.

~3500 BCE

Kish Tablet

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.

~2450 BCE

Stele of the Vultures

The earliest historical document in human history.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.