Position in chronology
RIME 3/1.01.07.037, ex. add1487
About this tablet
This is a royal dedicatory inscription of Gudea, ruler (ensi) of the Sumerian city-state of Lagash, who governed around 2100 BCE. It commemorates his rebuilding of the Eninnu, the great temple of the warrior god Ningirsu at Girsu, whose emblem was the mythical white thunderbird Anzud. Short texts like this were inscribed on bricks, cones, or foundation deposits and placed throughout a temple as a permanent record of the ruler's piety and building work for his god — one of many such inscriptions Gudea commissioned, making him one of the best-documented rulers of the ancient Near East.
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-son. Gudea, the ruler of Lagash, carried out for him everything that was fitting and made it splendid. He built the Eninnu — Ningirsu's temple, marked by the White Thunderbird — for the god, and set it back in its proper place, restored.
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 resplendent what is fitting for him. His Eninnu, the White Anzud (Thunderbird), he built for him, he restored it for him (returned it 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. add1487. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: TUL LH 25 (Tsurumi University Library, Yokohama, Japan) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P504427). 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.