Position in chronology
NM 44.0020
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P418022.
Transliteration
iti sig4 u4 2(u)? 3(disz) u4 2(u)#? 6(disz) x x? mu tukul szu-nir ku3-sig17# x
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — NM 44.0020. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: NM 44.0020 (Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P418022). source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P418022..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.