Position in chronology
OB Legal 009
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P257660.
Transliteration
_2(u) 4(disz) lu2-sze-sag11-ku5-mesz_ er3-ra-ni-szu lu-sza-lim a-na-utu-li-s,i2 _iti# bara2-za3-gar_ _u4 2(u) 8(disz)-kam_ _mu tukul szu-nir_ isz-me-[suen] sanga utu _dumu_ i-ku-un-pi4-urasz* ARAD sa-am-su-i-[lu-na]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — OB Legal 009. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P257660) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P257660..
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.