Position in chronology
CUSAS 15, 034
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P270666.
Transliteration
_2(disz) sila3 i3 sag_ _3(disz) sila3 duh su3_ _1(disz)? sila3 duh e3-a_ a-na _siskur2 nin-urta ki-sur-ra_ _giri3_ ni-id-na-at-suen _ki_ i-ku-un-pi4-iszkur u3 i3-li2-i-din-nam _ba-zi_ _iti udru u4 7(disz)-kam_ _mu a2-mah an en-lil2 en-ki-ga-ta iri_ da-mi-iq-i3-li2-szu _sipa zi ri-im-suen in-dab5_
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — CUSAS 15, 034. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Rare Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York, USA (P270666) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P270666..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.