Position in chronology
AAICAB 1/4, Bod S 474
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P330542.
Transliteration
7(disz) udu 3(disz) u8 gukkal szu-gid2 e2-muhaldim mu aga3-us2-e-ne-sze3 giri3 szul-gi-iri-mu ARAD2-mu maszkim iti u4 1(u) la2 1(disz@t) ba-zal ki szul-gi-a-a-mu#-ta ba-zi [iti] a2#-ki-ti [mu en]-unu6#-gal [inanna ba]-hun# 1(u) udu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AAICAB 1/4, Bod S 474. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Amar-Suen y4 — En-unugal of Inanna installed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P330542) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P330542..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.