Position in chronology
Šu-Suen 13
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(1) For Šu-Suen, the beloved of Enlil, the king whom Enlil chose with the love of his heart, the powerful king, king of Urim, king of the four quarters, his king, Arad-Nanna, the grand vizier, governor of Lagaš, temple administrator of Enki, military governor of Uṣar-Garšana, military governor of Bašime, governor of Sabum and the land of Gutebum, military governor of Dimat-Enlila, governor of Āl-Šu-Suen, military governor of Urbillum, governor of Ḫamzi and Karaḫar, military governor of ..., military governor of Šimaški and the land of Kardak, his servant, built his temple in Ĝirsu.
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 Q000997.
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/Q000997/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.