Position in chronology
Cuneiform tablet recording observation of Halley's Comet
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: Wikimedia Commons file: File:Cuneiform tablet recording observation of Halley's Comet.JPG. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACuneiform_tablet_recording_observation_of_Halley's_Comet.JPG. Description: Observation of Haley's Comet, recorded in Cuneiform on a clay tablet between 22-28 September 164 BCE, Babylon, Iraq. British Museum, London. BM 41462
Scholarly note
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Observation of Haley's Comet, recorded in Cuneiform on a clay tablet between 22-28 September 164 BCE, Babylon, Iraq. British Museum, London. BM 41462
Attribution
Image: Gavin.collins — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:Cuneiform tablet recording observation of Halley's Comet.JPG. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACuneiform_tablet_recording_observation_of_Halley's_Comet.JPG. Description: Observation of Haley's Comet, recorded in Cuneiform on a clay tablet between 22-28 September 164 BCE, Babylon, Iraq. British Museum, London. BM 41462.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.