Position in chronology
MCS 5, 59 HSM 7970*
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P112799.
Why it matters
Transliteration
5(u) 5(asz) 3(barig) 5(disz) 5/6(disz) sila3 sze gur lugal a2 lu2 hun-ga2 sahar zi-zi-de3 ki a-da-lal3 szabra-ta lu2-nanna nu-banda3-gu4-ke4 in-zi a-sza3 ma-da umma iti ezem-an-na mu# ha#-ar#-szi ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MCS 5, 59 HSM 7970*. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y26 — Harši destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (P112799) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P112799..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.