Position in chronology
NATN 533
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P121231.
Transliteration
5(disz) gi dur ka i7 temen-ab-ba-sur-ra-sze3 5(disz) gi dur u3-sur-lam-ka-sze3 ki ensi2-ka-ta ur-nin-urta ama-iri-ke4 szu ba-ti iti sig4-ga mu us2-sa bad3-gal ba-du3-a mu us2-sa ur-nin-urta dub-sar dumu mu-ni-mah nu-banda3 erin2-na
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NATN 533. 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 (P121231) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P121231..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.