Position in chronology
PBS 08/2, 197
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P258021.
Transliteration
_1(barig) 4(ban2) sze_ _masz2 nu-tuku_ _ki_ utu-mu-ba-li2#-[it,] _dumu_ u2-lu-[lu] utu-na-[...] _dumu_ nu-ur2-[...] _szu ba-an-ti#_ _u4 buru14-sze3#_ _sze i3-ag2-[e_] _igi_ lu-usz-ta#-[mar] _dumu_ a-hu-la#-ap#-[utu] _igi_ ka-lu-mu-um _dumu_ utu-tab-ba-szu _mu gu-za_ na-bi#-um# _iti sze-sag11-ku5_
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — PBS 08/2, 197. 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 (P258021) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P258021..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.