Position in chronology
TAD 26
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P131068.
Why it matters
Transliteration
1(disz) udu i-ma-mi? 1(disz) masz2 nam-ha-ni lu2 tukul? sza3 unu ki al-la-mu-ta ba-zi iti ezem-mah [mu] i-bi2-[]suen lugal [szu?]-suen lugal# kal-ga lugal# uri5-ma [lugal] an-ub-da limmu2-ba
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — TAD 26. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Ibbi-Suen y1 — Ibbi-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P131068) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P131068..
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.