Position in chronology
AnOr 01, 154
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P101145.
Transliteration
1(disz) ur-ki-mah u4 3(u)-sze3 a-da gub-ba a-sza3 e2?-mah ugula lu2-dingir-ra kiszib3 lugal-ku3-ga-ni iti nesag mu szu-suen lugal lugal-ku3-ga-[ni] dumu ur-[mes]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AnOr 01, 154. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šu-Suen y1 — Šu-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France (P101145) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P101145..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.