Position in chronology
RIME 1.14.20.01, ex. 10
About this tablet
A fragment of a stone vase dedicated at Nippur by Lugalzagesi, king of Uruk (around 2350 BCE), the last great Sumerian ruler before Sargon of Akkad conquered the region. The surviving lines belong to his famous long titulary, in which he claims to be nurtured, raised, and favored by a whole roster of gods and goddesses — Nisaba, Ninhursag, Mes-sanga-unug, Ningirim — before turning to the moment when Enlil, king of all the lands, granted him kingship. Dozens of copies of this inscription were carved on vessels offered in Enlil's temple, making it one of the best-known royal texts of the Early Dynastic period.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives here is the middle of a king's boast. Lugalzagesi presents himself as divinely raised from infancy: nursed on the wholesome milk of the mother-goddess Ninhursag, a man of the god Mes-sanga-unug, a servant brought up by Ningirim, mistress of Uruk, and chief steward of all the gods. Then the narrative pivots: 'When Enlil, king of all the lands, gave Lugalzagesi...' — the moment the supreme god handed him kingship. The fragment breaks off just as that grant begins; the opening titles and the continuation are lost with the rest of the vase.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Beginning lost) [... lumaḫ-priest of the goddess] Nisaba, fed wholesome milk by Ninhursag, man of (the god) Mes-sanga-unug, attendant raised [by] Ningirim, the mistress of Uruk, chief steward of the gods — when Enlil, king of all the lands, (to) Lugalzagesi [gave the kingship of the Land ... (text breaks off)]
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
[...] nisaba# ga zi gu7-a nin-hur-sag lu2 mes-sanga-unu-[x] sag a2 e3-[x] nin-girimx(|A.BU.HA.DU|)# nin unu-ga-ka# agrig-mah dingir-re-ne-ra# u4 en-lil2# lugal kur-kur-ra-ke4 lugal-za3-ge-si#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — RIME 1.14.20.01, ex. 10. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P264680) — 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.