RIME 4.02.08.05, ex. 01

~1950 BCE·Old Babylonian·P345487

Not yet translated

This tablet is catalogued with its transliteration and photographed, but no published translation exists yet. Our translation engine works through the untranslated corpus every night, oldest first — this page will update the day its turn comes. If you are a specialist and can read it, we would love your help.

The world it comes from

Hammurabi, the Epic of Gilgamesh, mathematics.

Read the Old Babylonian chapter →

From the same catalogue range (near P345487)

P345483 · ~760 BCE

CDLI Literary Descent of Ishtar, ex. 002

P345482 · ~760 BCE

CDLI Literary Descent of Ishtar, ex. 001

P345481 · ~760 BCE

CDLI Literary 000368, ex. 002

P345480 · ~760 BCE

CDLI Literary 000350, ex. 001

Transliteration

nu-ur2-iszkur
nita kal-ga
engar zi uri5-ma
lugal larsa-ma
me esz3 e2-babbar-ra
ku3-ku3-ge
eridu u4 ul-li2-a-ta
szu mu-un-hul-a-ba
bala nig2-si-sa2-mu-usz
du3-de3 al bi2-du11
en-ki-ke4
ki-tusz ku3 ki-ag2-ga2-ni
mu-na-du3
gesz-hur ul-li2-a-ka-ni
ki-be2 mu-na-gi4

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Early Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1900 BC)) — RIME 4.02.08.05, ex. 01. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: British Museum, London, UK (P345487) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P345487..

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The earliest historical document in human history.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.