Position in chronology
Anonymous Nippur 07 (FAOS 05/2, AnNip 07)
Written in modern English
Someone dedicated this vessel as a votive offering for the well-being of Saĝ-diĝir-tuku and Lugal-ennu. The beginning of the inscription is lost, so the dedicant's name and any further details are gone.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(1') ... dedišated this (vessel) as votive offering for the well-being of Saĝ-diĝir-tuku, and for the well-being of Lugal-ennu.
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions — scholar edition (Vienna).
Why it matters
Votive dedication naming Saĝ-diĝir-tuku and Lugal-ennu preserves personal names and the practice of interceding for named individuals before the gods in Early Dynastic 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 Q001265.
Attribution
Image: CBS 09655 (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P222762). 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/Q001265/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.