Position in chronology
UET 6, 0375
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P346420.
Transliteration
x x x en#-te-[en] u4# %a um-me#!-du-u2 u4# a %a bi-ir-[x] x-x-x u4# a %a u4-mu-um x-usz-[...] u4# am-ra# %a u4-mu-um har-du-[um] u4-ma u4#-ma gar-ra %a x x [...] () kur %a er-[s,e-tum] () kur %a ku-[...] () kur %a ma-a-[tum] () kur %a sza-du#-[u2] [kur]-kur }
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — UET 6, 0375. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P346420) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P346420..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.