Position in chronology
UCP 09-04, 16
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P248025.
Transliteration
a-na a?-li2#-i-a qi2-bi2-ma um-ma ap-lum-ma utu u3 iszkur asz-szum-ia li-ba-al-li-t,u3-ka asz-szum un-ne-du-uk-ki sza tu-sza-bi-lam a-wi-lum tu-sza-am e-li-ia it-ta-di lu-ul-li-kam-ma x [x?] x szu-u2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — UCP 09-04, 16. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA (P248025) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P248025..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.