Position in chronology
RIME 1.09.04.14, ex. 08
About this tablet
A dedicatory inscription of Enannatum I, ruler of the Sumerian city-state of Lagash around 2400 BCE, written on a small tapering clay object found at Girsu (modern Tello, southern Iraq). The surviving lines record that the ruler had special objects (called KIB) made for the goddess Inanna and dedicated them for her temple, the Eanna. The same short text is written twice on the object, and the ruler's own name is broken away here — we know it from duplicate copies. It is a piece of official piety: a ruler stamping his devotion, and his name, onto the furnishings of a goddess's house.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The readable part says: the ruler of Lagash had these KIB-objects made for the goddess and dedicated them to her for her temple, the Eanna. The opening lines naming the goddess (Inanna) and the ruler himself (Enannatum) are lost from this copy. The inscription then repeats: the ruler of Lagash made the KIB-objects for her and dedicated them for the Eanna. In short, a votive label — 'made and given by the ruler of Lagash for Inanna's temple' — written out twice on the same object.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(First copy) [... For the goddess Inanna, Enannatum,] ruler of Lagash, fashioned KIB-objects for her, (and) for the Eanna he declared (dedicated) them to her. (Second copy, duplicate) [... the ruler] of Lagash fashioned KIB-objects for her, (and) for the Eanna he declared (dedicated) them to her.
Our translation engine — Fable 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
ensi2# lagasz-ka-ke4 KIB mu-na-dim2-dim2 e2-an-na-ke4 mu-na-du11 lagasz#-ka-ke4 KIB mu-na-dim4-dim4 e2-an-na-ke4 mu-na-du11
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — RIME 1.09.04.14, ex. 08. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA (P222486) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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.