Position in chronology
Anonymous Ur 23 (FAOS 05/2, AnUr 23)
Written in modern English
A name — presumably a ruler's — was proclaimed by the god Suen. The rest is lost: what survives is only a single partial line, identifying this person as the child of someone whose name the damaged surface no longer preserves.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(1') ..., whose name was proclaimed by Suen, child of ....
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions — scholar edition (Vienna).
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Why it matters
One of the fragmentary Early Dynastic royal inscriptions from the Lagash-Ur-Uruk cluster, preserving a Suen-invocation formula that documents the lunar god's role in legitimising kingship two centuries before Akkadian unification.
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 Q001361.
Attribution
Image: CBS 14942 (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) — from Ur (mod. Tell Muqayyar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P222869). 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/Q001361/.
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