Position in chronology
USC 6671
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P235482.
Transliteration
2(disz) su7-su7#-sar-ra gesz-da-a esir2 su-ba a2 u4 5(disz) ki a-gu#-ta# kiszib3 lu2-nam2-nun-ka sza3# bala-a mu en-unu6-gal inanna# [ba-hun] lu2-[nam2-an-ka] dub-sar dumu lu2-[szara2] sa12-[du5-ka]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — USC 6671. 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: Archaeological Research Collection, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA (P235482) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P235482..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.