Position in chronology
HSS 04, 118
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P110391.
Transliteration
5(disz) gin2 la2 igi-6(disz)-gal2 5(disz)# ku3-babbar ku3 gu4 udu si-i3-tum ki lu2-usz-gi-na-ta e2-gal-la ba-an-kux(KWU147) giri3 lu2-utu dumu ba-zi iti szu-numun mu amar-suen lugal ur-bi2-lum mu-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — HSS 04, 118. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Amar-Suen y1 — Amar-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (P110391) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P110391..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.