Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0897
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P323225.
Transliteration
2(disz) du10-[gan] ti-bala had2 1(disz) e-sir2 du e2-ba-an ki a-na-ah-i3-li2-ta ba-zi iti u5-bi2-gu7 mu ma2-gur8-mah en-lil2 nin-lil2-ra mu-ne-dim2 szu-kab2-ta a-zu dumu na-ra-am-i3-li2 iszkur-illat dub-sar dumu a-bi2-a ARAD2-zu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0897. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Amar-Suen y8 — The great barge for Enlil and Ninlil was fashioned based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA (P323225) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P323225..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.