Position in chronology
RIME 3/1.01.07.037, ex. add1488
About this tablet
This is a short royal dedicatory inscription of Gudea, ruler (ensi) of the city-state of Lagash in southern Mesopotamia, around 2100 BCE. It commemorates his rebuilding of the Eninnu, the great temple of the warrior-god Ningirsu, whose emblem was the mythical White Anzu bird. Gudea is one of the best-documented rulers of the ancient Near East precisely because he commissioned so many statues, cylinders, and building inscriptions like this one, all celebrating his piety in restoring temples for the gods of Lagash.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This inscription honors Ningirsu, the mighty warrior-god who serves Enlil. It records that Gudea, ruler of the city of Lagash, carried out a fitting and glorious deed: he built the Eninnu temple — the House of the White Anzu-bird, Ningirsu's sacred emblem — and restored it, setting it back in its proper place for the god.
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 the fitting thing resplendent (for him). The Eninnu, his (temple of the) White Anzu, he built for him; he 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. add1488. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: KWUL 02 (Kobe Women's University Library, Kobe, Japan) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P504429). 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.