Position in chronology
E-anatum 02
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(i 4) ... Enlil demarcated ... for (Ninĝirsu) and Me-silim erected a stela, .... his order .... (ii 5) ... removed the stela and repositioned it towards the plain of Lagaš. (iv 2) E-ana-tum, ruler of Lagaš, given strenght by Enlil, nourished on rich milk by Ninhursaĝa, called by a propitious name by Nanše, who makes the foreign lands submit to Ninĝirsu, returned his beloved field under Ninĝirsu’s authority. E-ana-tum did not let (the field) extend beyond the place where Me-silim once had erected the stela. He returned (this stela) to its (original) place.
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions — scholar edition (Vienna).
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Why it matters
Records E-ana-tum of Lagaš restoring a boundary stela originally set by Me-silim — one of the earliest attestations of a ruler invoking a prior landmark to legitimize territorial claims under divine sanction.
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 Q001060.
Attribution
Image: SM 1913.02.180 (Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P222407). 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/Q001060/.
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