Position in chronology
SE 127
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P009444.
Why it matters
Transliteration
[...] x M001# M388# x |M296+M296|# , 5(N01)# [...] , 1(N14) M124 M009 M338~b , 1(N14) 2(N01) M388 x [...] , [...] [...] , 1(N14) 1(N01) M388 M295~y? M219 , 1(N14) 1(N01) 2(N39B) 1(N24) [...] x x , 1(N14) 2(N01) M146~d M388#? [...] , [...] [...] , 4(N14) 1(N01) 2(N39B) 1(N24)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — SE 127. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Couvent Saint-Etienne, Jerusalem (P009444) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P009444..
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.