Position in chronology
E-anatum 03
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(i 1) Enlil ... Ninĝirsu and Šara .... The leader of Umma removed the stela and repositioned it towards the plain of Lagaš. ... commanded E-ana-tum, and he destroyed Umma. ... E-ana-tum erected a stela next to the mound on which Me-silim had erected a stela. He named the stela that he erected next to it "Ninĝirsu, the lord, is eternally exalted in the abzu". (ii 18) If the leader of Umma crosses the (border) canal in order to take away fields, may Ningirsu be (like a) dragon to him, and may Enlil make salt surface in his furrows! May ... not grant hime life, and he himself ...! May ... not grant him life! May he be killed in his own city!
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 Q001067.
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/Q001067/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.