Position in chronology
Syracuse 031
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P130582.
Transliteration
1(disz) nin-zi geme2 nig2-ar3-ra gu4 niga-sze3 iti sze-sag11-ku5-ta iti dumu-zi-sze3 an-na-hi-li-bi i3-dab5 ugula ur-nin-tu mu en eridu ba-hun an-na-hi-li-[bi] [dumu utu-ge6]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Syracuse 031. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Syracuse University Library, Syracuse, New York, USA (P130582) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P130582..
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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.
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