Position in chronology
Ontario 2, 473
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P209760.
Transliteration
4(asz) sze gur lugal nig2-ezem-ma dumu-zi a-sza3 la2-mah-ta ki ARAD2-ta x-ma-ti szu# ba-ti mu us2-sa e2 puzur4-da-gan ba-du3 he2-na-sa6 dub-sar dumu ur-dumu-zi
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Ontario 2, 473. 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 (P209760) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P209760..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.