Position in chronology
Ur-Nanše 20
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(i 1) Ur-Nanše, king of Lagaš, child of Gunidu, built the temple of Ninĝirsu. (i 7) He built the Ebgal. (i 9) He built the temple of Nanše. (ii 1) He built the Kinir. (ii 3) He built the Bagara. (ii 5) He built the E-dam. (ii 7) He built the E-ĝidru. (ii 9) He built the Šeše-ĝara. (iii 1) He built the Tiraš. (iii 3) He built the temple of Ĝatumdug. (iii 5) He built the Abzu-ega. (iii 7) When he built temple of Ninĝirsu, he provided the temple with 70 guru of barley. (iv 1) He established control of the Dilmun-boats (coming) from the foreign countries. (iv 4) He built the city wall of Lagaš. (iv 6) He built the Abzu-banda. (v 1) He fashioned (the statue of) Nanše, the mighty lady. He dug the ... canal, and ... water into the ... canal for her.
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 Q001035.
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/Q001035/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.