Position in chronology
GigaMesh Screenshot 20200115 Salmanasssar III Tablet Fragment
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: Wikimedia Commons file: File:GigaMesh Screenshot 20200115 Salmanasssar III Tablet Fragment.png. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AGigaMesh_Screenshot_20200115_Salmanasssar_III_Tablet_Fragment.png. Description: Screenshot of GigaMesh v.200115. The shown 3D-model is a fragment of a clay tablet with cuneiform script about king Shalmaneser III with segmented groups of wedges.
Why it matters
Transliteration
Scholarly note
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Screenshot of GigaMesh v.200115. The shown 3D-model is a fragment of a clay tablet with cuneiform script about king Shalmaneser III with segmented groups of wedges.
Attribution
Image: Enki75 — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:GigaMesh Screenshot 20200115 Salmanasssar III Tablet Fragment.png. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AGigaMesh_Screenshot_20200115_Salmanasssar_III_Tablet_Fragment.png. Description: Screenshot of GigaMesh v.200115. The shown 3D-model is a fragment of a clay tablet with cuneiform script about king Shalmaneser III with segmented groups of wedges..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.