Position in chronology
BM 090715
About this tablet
This is a fragment of a royal building inscription, almost certainly commemorating the restoration of the Ekišnugal, the great temple of the moon-god Sin (Nanna) at Ur — one of the most venerated shrines in Mesopotamia. The formula is a standard one used by kings across many centuries: a ruler boasts that an ancient sanctuary, built long ago and fallen into disrepair, was rebuilt by him and its foundations restored to their original place. The king's own name is missing from the surviving lines, but the Middle Babylonian date and subject matter point to a ruler of the Kassite dynasty (such as Kurigalzu) who is known to have carried out such restorations at Ur.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A king — described as "mighty" and "king of the four quarters of the world" — records that he rebuilt the Ekišnugal, the age-old temple that had been standing since distant times but had fallen into ruin. He rebuilt it for the god and restored it to its original site, resetting its foundations. The text breaks off partway through the description of the foundation work, so the rest of the inscription — including likely details of dimensions, dedication, or blessing — is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Mighty] king, king of the four quarters (regions) of heaven (and earth), the Ekišnugal — the ancient temple which, from distant days, had been built (and) had fallen into ruin — he built (it anew) for him (the god). To its (former) place he restored it. Its foundation(s) …
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Engine notes
read from photo5 uncertain terms ↓
- lugal# [kal-ga] — The royal name or epithet is broken; 'kal-ga' ('mighty') is a common epithet in such contexts and the restoration is conventional but not verified from the photo.
- lugal an ub-da limmu2-ba — Standard Sumerian formula for 'king of the four quarters' (Akkadian: šar kibrāt erbetti). Attribution to a specific king is impossible without the name.
- e2-kisz-nu-gal2 — The Ekišnugal: the temple of the moon-god Sîn at Ur. The Sumerian name means roughly 'house, the great light'; here rendered by its conventional proper name.
- ba-du3-a ba-til — Literally 'had been built, had ceased/ended'; idiom for a temple having fallen into disrepair or ruin. 'ba-til' can mean 'had been completed' in some contexts, but in restoration inscriptions the sense is typically deterioration/abandonment.
- suhusz-bi — 'Its foundations' — the line is cut off by the break; a following verb (likely 'he laid' or 'he made firm') is lost.
Reasoning ↓
The photograph shows a roughly square clay tablet, approximately 8–9 cm across by the scale bar, with the inscribed text contained within a ruled rectangular column in the upper-centre of the obverse. The surface is noticeably weathered and abraded, particularly in the lower half where the clay is bare and the museum accession number '90715' is stamped in modern ink. The ruled column preserves approximately nine to ten lines of cuneiform text; individual wedges are visible and relatively clear in the upper lines, becoming less distinct toward the bottom. Visually I can confirm the columnar layout and the presence of multiple lines consistent with a royal inscription. The sign sequence in line 1 is partially broken at left, consistent with 'lugal#' in the transliteration; 'an ub-da limmu2-ba' in line 2 is a well-known formulaic phrase for 'king of the four quarters' and the grouped signs in that line are plausible against the photo. 'e2-kisz-nu-gal2' (Ekišnugal, the Sîn temple at Ur) and the subsequent lines recording rebuilding and restoration follow a standard Middle Babylonian building-inscription template and align with what is legible. The final line 'suhusz-bi' ('its foundations') is presumably the beginning of a further clause now lost; the tablet is broken below this point. The break in the royal name at the start is a significant lacuna — cannot determine the king from the photo alone. Overall the photo reading is consistent with the supplied transliteration; no discrepancies noted beyond the expected lacunae.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 12, 2026 · 3440 in / 1026 out tokens
Transliteration
lugal# [kal-ga] lugal an# ub-da# limmu2-ba e2-kisz-nu-gal2 e2 libir-ra u4-ul-li2-a-ta ba-du3-a ba-til mu-na-du3 ki-bi-sze3 bi2-in-gi4-a suhusz-bi
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Middle Babylonian (ca. 1400-1100 BC)) — BM 090715. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P428301) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.