Position in chronology
TJA FM 39
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P315320.
Transliteration
_1(disz) sila4 du_ _1(disz) sila4 du_ _2(disz) kir11 ri-ri-[ga]_ hi-mi-is,-s,i2-ti-im _mu-kux(DU)_ na-bu-ia#-tum# [...] za-ba4-ba4 inanna# szu gibil bi2-in-ak-am3# [na]-bi#-um-[ma-lik] [_dumu_] utu-na-[s,i-ir] [_ARAD_] na-bi#-[um]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — TJA FM 39. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK (P315320) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P315320..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.