Position in chronology
Gudea 041
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(1) For Ninĝirsu, the powerful warrior of Enlil, his master, Gudea, ruler of Lagaš, made an eternal thing appear: he built and restored his E-ninnu-anzud-babbar.
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions — scholar edition (Vienna).
Why it matters
Dedicatory inscription in which Gudea of Lagaš credits Ninĝirsu with commissioning the E-ninnu temple: one of dozens of such texts that collectively map the ideological compact between Lagašite rulers and their city-god.
Scholarly note
Sumerian royal inscription, published in the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions (ETCSRI) by Gábor Zólyomi and collaborators. Translation reproduced from the ETCSRI edition. ORACC text Q000911.
Attribution
Image: NYPLC 449 (New York Public Library, New York, New York, USA) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P232879). source
Translation excerpted from Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions (ETCSRI), University of Vienna, edited by Gábor Zólyomi et al. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/etcsri/Q000911/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.