Position in chronology
TCND 223
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P133919.
Transliteration
4(disz) udu niga inanna lugal# kux(KWU147)-ra 1(disz) udu niga na-na-a nansze?-GIR2@g?-gal maszkim? [...] [...] [...] ba-[zi] iti u5-bi2-gu7 mu us2-[sa] ki-masz ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — TCND 223. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Museo di Antichità di Torino, Turin, Italy (P133919) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P133919..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.