Position in chronology
Ur-Namma 28
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(i 1) When Ur-Namma, the powerful man, king of Urim, king of Sumer and Akkad, built the temple of Enlil, then for Nanna, the firstborn child of Enlil, his master, he dug the canal whose name is "Nanna is the canal inspector", a boundary canal, extending it into the sea. By the just decision of Utu, he examined (the canal’s course) and approved it. (ii 1) If anyone contest Nanna over (the canal), may he be king or a ruler, he should be treated as if he were cursed by Nanna! May he lose status in the dwelling of Nanna! May his city expel him from under the reed canopy! May his life be miserable!
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 Q000952.
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/Q000952/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.