Position in chronology
Ur-Namma 19
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(i 1) For Nanna, the first-born son of Enlil, Ur-Namma, the powerful man, king of Urim, king of Sumer and Akkad, drained a swamp planted with date palms seedlings, a genuine swamp, with an area of 3600 bur, and created a levee for it in the length of 4 dana 260 nindan. He donated (the drained swamp) to Urim for ever. (ii 7) The name of this levee is “Who is like Nanna?”.
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 Q000946.
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/Q000946/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.