Position in chronology
A praise poem of Shulgi (Shulgi W)
Written in modern English
The opening is badly damaged — two lines are gone, then a fragment about something that does not release, then another lost line and a second such fragment, before a partial phrase about the wise of the land doing something daily. What follows is equally broken: someone was made to pay heavy tribute in full, a line is lost, then something about flour trails off. Two more lines are unreadable before a voice identifies itself as Shulgi, king of Ur, speaking of his father, invoking Lugalbanda, and declaring he will rejoice — but six further fragmentary lines and an unknown number of completely missing lines swallow the rest.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSL2 lines fragmentary ...... does not release ....... 1 line fragmentary ...... does not release ....... ...... the wise of the Land daily. 1 line fragmentary ...... made you pay his heavy tribute in full. 1 line fragmentary ...... his flour (?) ....... 2 lines fragmentary ...... Culgi, king of Urim. I am ....... My ....... ...... for my father. ...... Lugalbanda ....... I will rejoice ....... 6 lines fragmentary unknown no. of lines missing
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature — scholar edition (Oxford, Black/Cunningham/Robson/Zólyomi).
Scholarly note
Composition c.2.4.2.23 in the ETCSL catalogue. Sumerian literary text reconstructed from multiple cuneiform manuscripts, the great majority Old Babylonian (c. 1900–1600 BCE). Translation reproduced from the ETCSL edition.
Attribution
Image: .
Translation excerpted from ETCSL c.2.4.2.23: A praise poem of Shulgi (Shulgi W). Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Robson, E. & Zólyomi, G. (eds.), The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.2.4.2.23.
Related tablets
Related sources
The single most important literary discovery of the 19th century. It rewired the understanding of the Bible's literary context and proved that the Mesopotamian flood tradition is older. It is the oldest surviving epic poetry in human history.
The literary tradition is no longer anonymous from this point. Authorship — the idea that a specific human voice composes a specific work — enters the historical record with her.
The single most influential Mesopotamian king list — the model for every later attempt to chronicle the deep history of the region. It transmits the political theology of divinely granted kingship, an idea that would echo through Babylon, Assyria, and into the Hebrew Bible. The Weld-Blundell prism (WB 444) at the Ashmolean is the most complete surviving copy.