Position in chronology
UET 3, 1233
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P137558.
Transliteration
4(disz) ab2# [...] mu BI x [...] da [...] 1(disz) ab2 mu [...] mu gu4 szu la2-a ur-ba#-ba6# lu2 lu2-en-lil2-la2-sze3 ki a-hu-ba-qar-ta ur-nig2 dub-sar i3-dab5 giri3 szu-esz18-dar dub-sar iti ezem-me-ki#-[gal2] mu dumu munus lugal# [ensi2] za-ab-sza#-li#[ ba-an-tuku]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — UET 3, 1233. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P137558) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P137558..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.