Position in chronology
TCS 1, 129
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P145677.
Transliteration
lu2-szara2 u3-na-a-du11 sza3-nin-ga2-ke4 gu4 la2-de3 nu-un-hun nam-zi-tar-ra u3 da-ge6-a gu4 ma-ab-la2-e ma-du10-ga he2-na-be2 dub-ba-ni szu he2-bar im-lah5
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — TCS 1, 129. 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 (P145677) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P145677..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.