Position in chronology
Ontario 1, 044
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P124457.
Transliteration
2(disz) udu niga saga us2 nin-lil2 ninda du8-a geszbun2 sza3 e2 en-lil2 u4 hu-ur5-ti a-ra2 2(disz)-kam-asz ba-hul iti u4 2(u) 4(disz) ba-zal zi-ga ki lu2-[dingir-ra] iti ki-siki-nin-a-zu mu ki-masz u3 hu-ur5-ti ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Ontario 1, 044. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (P124457) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P124457..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.