Position in chronology
CDLI Literary 000778, ex. 045
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P346681.
Transliteration
al#-e u3#? ix(|A.SUG|)-da#? [...] dagx(KA2) ki agrun-na-ka [...] hul-gal2 u4-nu2-a dumu [...] u4 sa2# du11-ga-ta-a an-sze3#? [...] an-sze3# al-ti#-ri2#-ki#? muszen# dingir#-[...] [...] gesz#-gi-a ur#-[...] uszumgal-am3# [...]-lu#?-am3 [...]-lu-hab2-am3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — CDLI Literary 000778, ex. 045. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P346681) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P346681..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.