Position in chronology
E-anatum 10
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(i 1) For Ninĝirsu, Enlil’s warrior. (i 4) E-ana-tum, ruler of Lagaš, given strength by Ninĝirsu, the man who returned Ninĝirsu's beloved field, the Gu-edena, under his control, E-ana-tum, who makes the foreign lands submit to Ninĝirsu, child of Aya-kurgal, ruler of Lagaš, built the E-za for Ninĝirsu with precious metal and lapis lazuli. He built for him the storehouse of ... and heaped up piles of grain in it. (iii 6) The personal god of E-ana-tum, entrusted with the sceptre by Ninĝirsu, is Šul-MUŠxPA.
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 Q001071.
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/Q001071/.
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.