Position in chronology
RIME 3/1.01.07.037, ex. add1287
About this tablet
This is a short royal dedicatory inscription of Gudea, the Sumerian ruler of the city-state of Lagash (city center at Girsu, modern Tello) around 2100 BCE. It commemorates his rebuilding of the Eninnu, the great temple of the warrior-god Ningirsu, whose emblem was the mythical thunderbird Anzu (here called 'the White Thunderbird'). Such inscriptions were carved on statues, foundation objects, bricks, or cones and placed in the temple itself, proclaiming the king's piety and his role as builder-restorer of the god's house — one of the most celebrated building projects in Mesopotamian history, also described at great length in the Gudea cylinders.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This inscription honors Ningirsu, Enlil's mighty warrior. Gudea, ruler of Lagash, made everything about the temple as splendid and fitting as it should be. He built Ningirsu's temple, the Eninnu — known as the White Thunderbird — and restored it, setting it back in its proper place.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineFor Ningirsu, mighty warrior of Enlil, Gudea, ruler of Lagash, made (what is) fitting resplendent (for him); his Eninnu, the White Thunderbird, he built for him, (and) restored it for him to its place.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
nin-gir2-su ur-sag kal-ga en-lil2-la2-ra gu3-de2-a ensi2 lagasz-ke4 nig2-du7-e pa mu-na-e3 e2-ninnu anzu2-babbar2-ra-ni mu-na-du3 ki-be2 mu-na-gi4
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Lagash II (ca. 2200-2100 BC)) — RIME 3/1.01.07.037, ex. add1287. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: WCMA 20.1.32 (Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) ? — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P424397). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.