Orient 55, 164 no. 10

~2037 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P424385

Translation — curated editorial

Editorial

Experimental

Editorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P424385.

Transliteration

1/3(disz) ma-na ku3-babbar
la2-ia3 su-ga nu-kiri6-ke4-ne
ki szara2-kam-ta
gu-du-du
szu ba-ti
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)) — Orient 55, 164 no. 10. 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: Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA (P424385) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P424385..

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet

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.

~3500 BCE

Kish Tablet

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.

~2450 BCE

Stele of the Vultures

The earliest historical document in human history.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.