Position in chronology
En-metena 26
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(i 1) For Ninĝirsu, Enlil’s warrior. (i 3) When Ninĝirsu chose him from Ĝirnun in his holy heart, and decided his fate from the E-ninnu, and Nanše looked at him with favour from Sirara, then En-metena, ruler of Lagaš, given strength by Enlil, nourished on rich milk by Ninhursaĝa, chosen by Nanše in the heart, chief governor of Ninĝirsu, the child born to Lugal-Uruba, child of En-ana-tum, ruler of Lagaš, built a weir on the Lumagin-dug canal for Ninĝirsu with the use of 648000 fired bricks and 1840 standard gur of bitumen. (iv 9) He fashioned ... of Ninĝirsu .... (v 2) He released (the people…
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions — scholar edition (Vienna).
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 Q001108.
Attribution
Image: .
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/Q001108/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.