Position in chronology
TCNU 698
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P135544.
Transliteration
1(disz) u3-dag-ga e2 gala iti ezem-szul-gi-ta ki bi2-du11-ga-ta a-gu-gu i3-dab5 mu us2-sa e2 puzur4-da-gan ba-du3 mu us2-sa-bi ur-li9-si4 ensi2 umma lugal-[ezem dub-sar?] dumu da-da ARAD2-zu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — TCNU 698. 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 (P135544) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P135544..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.