Position in chronology
NATN 824
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P121521.
Transliteration
[x] udu 1(u) masz2 e2-gissu du-x 1(disz) udu niga gu4-e-us2-sa balag 7(disz) nin-[...] giri3 [x] ba [x] 1(disz) udu niga siskur x suen [...] ki#? e2-gissu-ta? ba-zi [iti] gan-gan-e3 u4 1(u) 5(disz) ba-zal [mu ]szu-suen lugal
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NATN 824. 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: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA (P121521) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P121521..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.