Numerical tablet Khafaje OIM A21310

Translation · reference

Experimental

Source: Wikimedia Commons file: File:Numerical tablet Khafaje OIM A21310.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANumerical_tablet_Khafaje_OIM_A21310.jpg. Description: Numerical tablet, dated ca 3500-3350 BC (Uruk V phase), found in Khafaje. Oriental Institute Museum A21310. CDLI P235768 https://cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P235768

Why it matters

Transliteration

Scholarly note

Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Numerical tablet, dated ca 3500-3350 BC (Uruk V phase), found in Khafaje. Oriental Institute Museum A21310. CDLI P235768 https://cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P235768

Attribution

Image: Original: Daderot Derivative work : Zunkir — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:Numerical tablet Khafaje OIM A21310.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANumerical_tablet_Khafaje_OIM_A21310.jpg. Description: Numerical tablet, dated ca 3500-3350 BC (Uruk V phase), found in Khafaje. Oriental Institute Museum A21310. CDLI P235768 https://cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P235768.

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet

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.

~3500 BCE

Kish Tablet

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.

~2450 BCE

Stele of the Vultures

The earliest historical document in human history.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.