Position in chronology
NATN 417
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P121115.
Transliteration
[...] [...] [...] 4(u) 4(disz) udu 1(disz) sila4 2(u) 4(disz) masz2 1(disz) ad3 udu a-sza3 kux(DU)-ra 4(disz) x [...] 5(disz) masz2 mu-kux(DU) ensi2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NATN 417. 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 (P121115) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P121115..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.