Position in chronology
CDLI Literary 000736, ex. 010
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P346160.
Transliteration
lu2 e2 munus-e nig2 mi2 du11-ga sahar e2-ga2-na tug2 gin6-na-a-ni#? x x sul dingir-ra-a-ni x# la-ba-ni-x e2-gu10 kurun dab5!-ba-gin7 lu2 AN musz gir2 e2 ku10-ku10-ga nig2-me-gar su13#?-ga dam-a-ni tug2 ba#-an#?-dun#? mu-un-szi-sug2#?-ge-de3-esz nun-gal nin e2-kur-ra# za3-mi2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — CDLI Literary 000736, ex. 010. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P346160) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P346160..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.