Position in chronology
RIME 1.14.20.01, ex. 42
About this tablet
Two joining fragments of a stone vase dedicated at Nippur by Lugalzagesi, king of Uruk and Umma, the last great ruler of Sumer before Sargon of Akkad conquered him (c. 2350 BCE). His famous vase inscription — known from dozens of shattered exemplars found in Enlil's temple — proclaims that the gods chose him and that the rulers of Sumer and of all foreign lands submitted to him at Uruk. This piece preserves part of that grand titulary and the beginning of his closing prayer to be commended to An. Ironically, these vases likely lay smashed in the temple after Sargon's victory.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives is a slice of a king's boast and prayer. He calls himself the man personally chosen by the sun-god Utu and the trusted chief minister of the moon-god Suen, and he declares that the crowned rulers of Sumer and the governors of every foreign land came to Uruk to acknowledge his supremacy. The text then turns to a blessing: may Enlil, king of all the lands, carry the king's prayer to An, his beloved father. The rest of the passage is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[nom]inated by name by the god Utu, chief minister of the god Suen — (before whom) the throne-holders of Sumer (and) the rulers of all the lands at Uru[k submitted to his princely authority] — ... [(the god Enlil,)] king of all the lands, to An, his beloved father, [may he speak his prayer(?)] [...] (remainder broken)
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
[mu] pa3#-da utu sukkal-mah suen bara2-bara2 ki-en-gi ensi2 kur-kur-ra ki unu#-[x] lugal kur-kur#-ra-ke4# an a ki-ag2#-ni [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — RIME 1.14.20.01, ex. 42. 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 (P264972) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.