Position in chronology
Ur-Bau 06
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(i 1) For Ninĝirsu, Enlil's powerful warrior, Ur-Bau, ruler of Lagaš, the child born to Ninagala, built his E-ninnu-anzud-babbar, (and) built his E-dura. (ii 5) For Bau, the kind woman, the child of An, he built her temple in Iri-kug. (iii 1) For Ninkugnuna he built her temple in Urub. (iii 4) For Enki, his master, he built his temple. (iii 8) For Ninagala, his personal god, he built his temple.
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions — scholar edition (Vienna).
Why it matters
Lists five temple-building projects by Ur-Bau of Lagaš — including E-ninnu for Ninĝirsu — fixing his reign as a major phase of sacred construction just before the Gutian period disrupted Sumerian urban life.
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 Q001467.
Attribution
Image: WAM 41.0106 (Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, USA) — from uncertain (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P272832). 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/Q001467/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.