Position in chronology
Išme-Dagan 03
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(1) En-ana-tuma, zirru priestess, en priestess of Nanna in Urim, child of Išme-Dagan, king of Sumer and Akkad.
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions — scholar edition (Vienna).
Why it matters
Names En-ana-tuma as both zirru and en priestess of Nanna at Ur, documenting the rare overlap of two distinct priestly offices in a single woman under Išme-Dagan's reign.
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 Q001947.
Attribution
Image: BM 137352 (British Museum, London, UK) — from Ur (mod. Tell Muqayyar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P428511). source
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/Q001947/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.