RIME 4.04.01.04, ex. add070

~1950 BCE·Old Babylonian·P393094

Translation · reference

Experimental

Source: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P393094.

Why it matters

Transliteration

suen-ga-szi-id
nita kal-ga
lugal unu-ga
lugal am-na-nu-um
u2-a e2-an-na#
u4 e2-an-na
mu-du3-a
e2-gal
nam-lugal-la-ka-ni
mu-du3

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Early Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1900 BC)) — RIME 4.04.01.04, ex. add070. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Harvard Art Museum / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (P393094) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P393094..

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The earliest historical document in human history.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.