Position in chronology
BE 03/1, 042
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P105594.
Transliteration
1(asz) sze gur sze ur5-ra-asz ki lu2#?-nam-tar-re-ta ur-x-x szu ba-ti iti x-[x]-x mu us2-sa en-an-na en inanna ba-hun ur-szu-mah# dumu ur-lugal
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — BE 03/1, 042. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P105594) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P105594..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.