Position in chronology
ViOr 8/1, 053
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P141995.
Why it matters
Transliteration
3(barig) sze lugal ur-isztaran [...] lu2-ga-mu 3(ban2) szah2 niga 1(ban2) 4(disz) sila3 uz-tur iti dumu-zi mu si-mu-ru-um ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — ViOr 8/1, 053. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y23 — Simurrum destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Università Pontificia Salesiana, Rome, Italy (P141995) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P141995..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.