Position in chronology
En-metena 27
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(i 1) For Ninĝirsu, Enlil’s warrior. (i 3) En-metena, ruler of Lagaš, child of En-ana-tum, ruler of Lagaš, built the great temple of Antasura for Ninĝirsu, and decorated it with gold and silver. He constructed the garden of the personal quarters, and installed numerous wells of fired brick in it for him. (ii 8) At that time, his servant Dudu, the temple administrator of Ninĝirsu, built the wall alongside Sala in Gu-edena, and named it for his sake "The temple is the guard against the plain". He built the wall of the ferry harbour in Ĝirsu, and named it for his sake “The lord is vigour”. (iv 4) May his personal god, Šul-MUŠxPA, pay obeisance to Ninĝirsu in the E-ninnu for his well-being!
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 Q001094.
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/Q001094/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.