Position in chronology
Anonymous Uruk 2 (FAOS 05/2, AnUruk 02)
Written in modern English
A king of Unug and Urim dedicated this vessel for his own well-being. His name is lost — the opening of the inscription is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(1') ..., ..., king of Unug, king of Urim, dedicated this (vessel) for his well-being.
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions — scholar edition (Vienna).
Why it matters
Votive dedication by a ruler claiming joint kingship over Uruk and Ur attests the practice of dual-city titulature in the Early Dynastic III period, before such formulas were standardised under later imperial regimes.
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 Q004166.
Attribution
Image: CBS 09613 (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P222911). 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/Q004166/.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.