NATN 638

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P121336

Translation — curated editorial

Editorial

Experimental

Editorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P121336.

Transliteration

[...] 2(asz) sze gur
ki lu2-dingir-ra-ta
ma-ba-e
szu ba-ti
mu ma-ba-a-sze3
kiszib3 ur-li9-si4 ib2-ra
[...] x
[...] bad3# [... ba]-du3#
ur-[li9-si4]
dumu x-ba-ni

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NATN 638. 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 (P121336) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P121336..

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet

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.

~3500 BCE

Kish Tablet

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.

~2450 BCE

Stele of the Vultures

The earliest historical document in human history.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.