Position in chronology
CDLI Literary 000343, ex. 024
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P274954.
Transliteration
[...] x x [...] [...]-un-[...] [...]-sze3 gen-[...] [...]-ke4# egir-a-ni i3-[...] [...] ga-sza-an-x-x-mu sag [...] [...] a#-ra-du11#-ga#? gu2-zu# la#-[...] [...] e2#-gal ganzer-sze3 um-[...] [...] x [...]-du8 x [...] [...] gal2?!-lu dili-mu x [...] [...] x i3-du8 gal kur [...] [...] inim mu#-[...]-x-[...] [...]-en [...] [...] x [...] x [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — CDLI Literary 000343, ex. 024. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad, Iraq (P274954) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P274954..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.