Position in chronology
OB Legal 016
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P257720.
Transliteration
asz#-szum? TUM tu [...] [i]-ta _a-sza3_ na-ra-[...] u3# i-ta _a-sza3_ bu-x-[...] x _sag-bi_ me-ab-zu x _sag-bi_ a-na ha-ra-x [...] zi#-ti dingir-szu-ba-ni _dumu_ szu-[ub-dingir] dingir-szu-ba-ni _dumu_ szu-ub-dingir na-ra-am-suen _sanga dumu_ x-[...] i-sza-am a-na szi-mi-szu [...] _ku3#-babbar_ isz-qu2-ul bu-ka#-[nam] szu-tu-uq a-wa-su2 [gam-ra-at] a-na wa-ar-ki-at [u4-mi] dingir-szu-ba-ni x [...] x x [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — OB Legal 016. 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 (P257720) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P257720..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.