Position in chronology
Šulgi 06
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(1) For Inana, the lady of the E-ana, his lady, Šulgi, the powerful man, king of Urim, king of Sumer and Akkad, restored the E-ana, (and) built its great wall.
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions — scholar edition (Vienna).
Why it matters
Attests Šulgi's building works at the E-ana temple complex in Uruk, linking his patronage of Inana's cult to his claim over the dual title 'king of Sumer and Akkad.'
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 Q000962.
Attribution
Image: A.3104_1982 (Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, Birmingham, UK) — from uncertain (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P332680). 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/Q000962/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.