Position in chronology
SANTAG 6, 014
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P211890.
Transliteration
[n] zi3#?-gu 3(disz) zi3#? x ma2-a gar nibru-sze3 [...] x szu ba-ti [x] zi3? x? [6(disz) sila3 zi3]-gu# lu2-dingir-mu nibru-sze3 giri3 lu2-i3#-zu [iti] li9-[si4] mu# dumu-lugal#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — SANTAG 6, 014. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (P211890) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P211890..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.