Position in chronology
AAICAB 1/3, pl. 240, Bod S 271
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P249176.
Transliteration
3(barig) sze# lugal# sze-ba sila-ta ug3-IL2-e-ne# mu a-ra2-[x]-sze3 si-i3-tum# [nig2]-ka9#-ak inim-inanna# ad-da-ra# su-su-dam iti dumu-zi mu us2-sa bad3 ba-du3 inim-inanna dumu lugal-iti-da#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AAICAB 1/3, pl. 240, Bod S 271. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P249176) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P249176..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.