Position in chronology
OB Legal 015
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P257715.
Transliteration
_3(disz) ha-bu-da_ _ki-la2-bi 1(disz) 1/2(disz) ma-na uruda_ _szu-ti-a_ marduk-e2-gal-li i-na qa2#-ti# ni-szi-i-ni-szu _dumu-munus_ na-bi-um-ma-lik [_iti] szu-numun-a u4 5(disz)-kam_ _mu#_ a-bi-e-szu-uh _lugal-e [nun] sun5-na lu2 utu-ke4_ []suen#-ba-[ni] dumu# x x x [x] ARAD# na-[bi-um] [u3] AN [mar-tu]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — OB Legal 015. 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 (P257715) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P257715..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.