Position in chronology
PBS 07, 081
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P259054.
Transliteration
[a-na ...] qi2#-[bi2-ma] um-ma _marduk_-mu-[...] _utu_ u3 _marduk_ li#-[ba-al-li-t,u2-ka] lu sza-al#-[ma-ta] _suen_-be-el#-[x ...] asz-szum ku-ub-bu-rum [...] i-DA?-[x ...] na-[...] a-na ma-ah-ri#-[x ...] ku-ub-[bu-rum ...] it-ti na-[x ...] a-na [...] a-na _ka2-dingir-ra#[_ ...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — PBS 07, 081. 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 (P259054) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P259054..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.