Position in chronology
RIME 1.14.20.01, ex. 47
About this tablet
This is a fragment of one of the most famous royal inscriptions of early Mesopotamia: the great vase inscription of Lugal-zagesi, king of Uruk (around 2350 BCE), the last major Sumerian ruler before Sargon of Akkad overthrew him. Lugal-zagesi dedicated dozens of stone vessels bearing this text to the god Enlil at Nippur, and this white stone chip is one of nearly fifty surviving pieces. The preserved lines come from two passages: one describing how the great cities — here Larsa and Umma — rejoiced and 'raised the horn' under his rule, and the closing prayer asking that the Land look upon a fair place under him and that the gods never alter his good fate. History answered that prayer harshly: Sargon led him captive to this very city in a neck-stock.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Only scraps survive on this chip of the vase. One column catches the roll-call of celebrating cities: a city beloved of its god made merry with rejoicing under the king, and Umma proudly raised its horn high. Then a stretch of text is lost. The other column preserves part of the king's closing prayer: may the whole Land look upon a fair and pleasant place under my rule, and may the good destiny the gods have decreed for me stand firm. The rest is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(beginning broken) [... beloved of the god Utu(?)] ... [...] with rejoicing [made merry] under him, [Umma], verily raised [its] horn [aloft]. (gap — intervening text lost) May the Land upon a fair place look, under me! The good fate which [they (An and Enlil)] have de[termined for me ...] (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
[...] [...]-ke4# [...] hul2#-la [x]-da#-e [umma] si# ha#-[...] kalam-e# ki sa6-ga igi ha-mu-da-du8 nam# sa6#-ga [x]-tar#-re#-esz2#-a#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — RIME 1.14.20.01, ex. 47. 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 (P264981) — 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.