Position in chronology
The poem of early rulers
Translation · reference
High confidenceup to 5 lines missing ...... is not made ....... ...... those men were overthrown. ...... the king? He reigned 36,000 years! ...... the king, the one who ascended to heaven? ...... he who, like Zi-ud-sura, tried to find life? ...... he who was honoured and then seized? ...... was not rivalled in the Land? ...... the kings, the leaders of former days? ......, have they not been born? ...... can my hand reach them? ...... no one knows it. ...... is like the twinkling of an eye. Who would consider ...... without cheerfulness to be superior to death? 36,000 years of silence ...... just one day of happiness. Having been given ...... the gods, life was sought for ....... ...... the share of mankind, ...... live in the house of the young men.
Source: ETCSL c.5.2.5: The poem of early rulers. 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.5.2.5
Why it matters
Transliteration
Scholarly note
Composition c.5.2.5 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.5.2.5: The poem of early rulers. 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.5.2.5.
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