Position in chronology
Ontario 2, 479
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P209402.
Transliteration
4(disz) ma-na siki nig2-lam2 3(disz)-kam us2 7(disz) ma-na siki tug2 guz-za 3(disz)-kam us2 3(asz) gu2 3(u) 2(disz) ma-na siki tug2 guz-za 4(disz)-kam us2 2(asz) gu2 1(u) 4(disz) ma-na siki tug2 guz-za du 1(asz) gu2 siki usz-bar siki sumun siki kur-ra ki ensi2-ta ur-nin-tu szu ba-ti iti sig4-i3-szub-ba-gar mu en-unu6-gal inanna ba-hun
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Ontario 2, 479. 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: Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (P209402) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P209402..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.