Position in chronology
Hermitage 3, 416
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P212170.
Transliteration
1(disz) pisan ha-lu-ub2 a2-an a tur sza3 e2-gal-sze3 u2-la-i3-ni-isz szu ba-ti ki lu2-dingir-ra-ta ba-zi sza3 nibru iti ki-siki-nin-a-zu u4 4(disz)-kam mu szu-suen lugal uri5-ma-ke4 ma-da za-ab-sza-li mu-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Hermitage 3, 416. 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: State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (P212170) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P212170..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.