Position in chronology
Gudea 025
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(1) For Nanše, the mighty lady, the lady of boundaries, his lady, Gudea, ruler of Lagaš, made an eternal thing appear: he built and restored her E-sirara, the mountain rising from among the houses, in her beloved city, Niĝin.
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions — scholar edition (Vienna).
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Why it matters
Gudea's dedication of the E-sirara temple to Nanše at Niĝin attests the governor of Lagaš's active patronage of a goddess whose portfolio explicitly included boundary-setting and social justice, linking civic piety to legal order in the Ur III period.
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 Q000901.
Attribution
Image: BM 090798 (British Museum, London, UK) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P232528). 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/Q000901/.
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