Position in chronology
YRL SC 1813-Bx1-5
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P373976.
Transliteration
2(u) la2 1(disz@t) udu#? niga 1(u) masz2-gal szu-a gi-na# u4 3(u) la2 1(disz@t)-kam 1(disz) udu niga e2 u4 7(disz)-kam 1(disz) udu niga e2 u4 5(disz) 1(disz) udu niga e2 u4-sakar nig2#-diri sa2-du11 szul-gi ki na-lu5-ta ba-zi sza3 uri5-ma iti masz-da3-gu7 mu sza-asz-ru ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — YRL SC 1813-Bx1-5. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Amar-Suen y6 — Šašru destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Special Collections, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA (P373976) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P373976..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.