Position in chronology
AAICAB 1/4, Bod S 505
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P330572.
Transliteration
1(disz) sila4 en-lil2 1(disz) sila4 nin-lil2 mu-kux(DU) wa-ta2-ru-um sanga nansze-GIR2@g-gal maszkim# u4 2(u) 6(disz)-kam ki ab-ba-sa6-ga-ta ba-zi iti ses-da-gu7 mu en-unu6-gal inanna unu ba-hun 2(disz)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AAICAB 1/4, Bod S 505. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P330572) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P330572..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.