Position in chronology
KM 89097
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P234885.
Transliteration
2(disz)? udu# u2# 1(disz) [...] sila4#? ki# ur-ku3#-nun-na#-[ta] szul-gi#-ezem# szu# ba#-ti# [giri3 lu2]-sza-lim dub-sar# [iti] ezem#-me-ki-gal2# mu# szu#-suen# lugal# uri5#-ma#-ke4# bad# za#-ab#-sza#-li# mu#-hul# [szul-gi-ezem] dub-sar# dumu ur-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — KM 89097. 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: Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA (P234885) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P234885..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.