Position in chronology
SF 002
About this tablet
A tablet from the ancient city of Šuruppak (modern Fara, Iraq), written around 2600 BCE — among the oldest readable Sumerian documents in existence. It carries a scribal list of names built from divine elements: several begin with 'Elum', 'the Honored One', a title of the great god Enlil, and one invokes Sud, the patron goddess of Šuruppak itself. Lists like this were the backbone of scribal training and religious record-keeping in the world's first schools; this piece shows literacy being systematized just a few generations after writing could first capture the Sumerian language in full.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a list, one name per line, each name a tiny sentence of praise. The readable entries run: '(The goddess) Sud surpasses the mountain-land'; 'The Honored One is a protecting shade'; then two lines too broken to read; 'The Honored One of the true crown'; 'The house's interior is a sweet protecting shade'; 'The Honored One of blessing'; and 'The Lady … Anzu.' 'The Honored One' is a title of the chief god Enlil, and Sud was the hometown goddess of Šuruppak, where the tablet was written. Only the left column of the front is inscribed; the back is blank, and a corner of the tablet is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse, column preserved at left; right half of the surface uninscribed) Sud(?)-kura-diri — "[The goddess] Sud(?)/the blessing surpasses the mountain-land" Elum-[an?]-dul — "The Honored One is a [protective] shade [(...)]" [...]-še-[...] (line broken) [...] (line lost) Elum-aga-zi — "The Honored One (of) the true crown" E-ša-andul-lal — "The house's interior is a sweet (honeyed) protective shade" Elum-šuda(?) — "The Honored One of blessing/prayer" Nin-AB-anzu — "The Lady ... Anzu(-bird)" (reverse uninscribed)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
sud3-kur-ra-diri e-lum-[an?]-dul3-[(...)] [...]-sze3-[...] [...] e-lum-aga3-zi e2-sza3-an-dul3-lal3 e-lum-szud3#?-da nin-AB-anzux(MI)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — SF 002. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (P010567) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.