Position in chronology
Anonymous Nippur 38 (FAOS 05/2, AnNip 38)
Written in modern English
Munus-šume, child of Ur-šubur, dedicated this vessel to the goddess Inana.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(1) To Inana, Munus-šume, child of Ur-šubur, dedicated this (vessel).
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions — scholar edition (Vienna).
Why it matters
Dedicatory inscription naming Munus-šume, child of Ur-šubur, as donor of a vessel to Inana — one of the few Early Dynastic records attesting private dedicants by personal and patronymic name at Nippur.
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 Q001292.
Attribution
Image: ROM 962.143.027 (Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P222794). 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/Q001292/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.