Position in chronology
Trouvaille 80
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P134753.
Transliteration
1(disz) gu4 niga nin-ti2-ug5-ga i3-si-in-ta du-ni mu a-mur-suen ensi2 kuara2 ba-zi u4 2(u) 4(disz)-kam iti u5-bi2-gu7 mu en nanna masz-e i3-pa3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Trouvaille 80. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels, Belgium (P134753) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P134753..
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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.
The earliest historical document in human history.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.