Position in chronology
TCVC 745
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P273677.
Transliteration
1/2(disz) ma-na 6(disz) gin2# [ku3-babbar] szu-ti#-[a] sza-at#-[x x?] ki u2-ra-tum qa2-ti# x x ri? im 5/6(disz) i-na 1(disz) ma-na? ku3-babbar sza# ma-ah#-ru u2-ba#-lam
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — TCVC 745. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Museo di Antichità di Torino, Turin, Italy (P273677) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P273677..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.