Sumerian·Book

Position in chronology

BM 090715

~1300 BCE·Middle Babylonian·P428301

About this tablet

A Middle Babylonian royal building inscription recording the restoration of the Ekišnugal, the great temple of the moon-god Sîn at Ur. A king — whose name is broken away but is described as 'mighty king, king of the four quarters' — boasts that he rebuilt this ancient shrine after it had fallen into ruin, returning it to its original state and relaying its foundations. Such inscriptions were typically deposited in the foundations of the rebuilt temple itself, so that future rulers and the gods would know of the pious work. The Ekišnugal at Ur was one of the most venerated sanctuaries in all of Mesopotamia, and its repeated restoration by successive kings over millennia makes fragments like this historically significant even when the royal name is lost.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Translation · reference

Medium confidence
The mighty king, king of the four quarters — the Ekišnugal, the ancient temple, which from distant days had been built (and) had fallen into disrepair, he (re)built for him; to its (original) place he restored it; its foundations …

Source: engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-12/v4-interpretation)

Translation · AI engine

read from photo
Medium confidence
The mighty king, king of the four quarters — the Ekišnugal, the ancient temple, which from distant days had been built (and) had fallen into disrepair, he (re)built for him; to its (original) place he restored it; its foundations …
5 uncertain terms
  • lugal# [kal-ga]The royal name or epithet is broken; 'kal-ga' ('mighty') is a common epithet in such contexts and the restoration is conventional but not verified from the photo.
  • lugal an ub-da limmu2-baStandard Sumerian formula for 'king of the four quarters' (Akkadian: šar kibrāt erbetti). Attribution to a specific king is impossible without the name.
  • e2-kisz-nu-gal2The Ekišnugal: the temple of the moon-god Sîn at Ur. The Sumerian name means roughly 'house, the great light'; here rendered by its conventional proper name.
  • ba-du3-a ba-tilLiterally 'had been built, had ceased/ended'; idiom for a temple having fallen into disrepair or ruin. 'ba-til' can mean 'had been completed' in some contexts, but in restoration inscriptions the sense is typically deterioration/abandonment.
  • suhusz-bi'Its foundations' — the line is cut off by the break; a following verb (likely 'he laid' or 'he made firm') is lost.
Reasoning ↓

The photograph shows a roughly square clay tablet, approximately 8–9 cm across by the scale bar, with the inscribed text contained within a ruled rectangular column in the upper-centre of the obverse. The surface is noticeably weathered and abraded, particularly in the lower half where the clay is bare and the museum accession number '90715' is stamped in modern ink. The ruled column preserves approximately nine to ten lines of cuneiform text; individual wedges are visible and relatively clear in the upper lines, becoming less distinct toward the bottom. Visually I can confirm the columnar layout and the presence of multiple lines consistent with a royal inscription. The sign sequence in line 1 is partially broken at left, consistent with 'lugal#' in the transliteration; 'an ub-da limmu2-ba' in line 2 is a well-known formulaic phrase for 'king of the four quarters' and the grouped signs in that line are plausible against the photo. 'e2-kisz-nu-gal2' (Ekišnugal, the Sîn temple at Ur) and the subsequent lines recording rebuilding and restoration follow a standard Middle Babylonian building-inscription template and align with what is legible. The final line 'suhusz-bi' ('its foundations') is presumably the beginning of a further clause now lost; the tablet is broken below this point. The break in the royal name at the start is a significant lacuna — cannot determine the king from the photo alone. Overall the photo reading is consistent with the supplied transliteration; no discrepancies noted beyond the expected lacunae.

Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 12, 2026 · 3440 in / 1026 out tokens

Why it matters

Transliteration

lugal# [kal-ga]
lugal an# ub-da# limmu2-ba
e2-kisz-nu-gal2
e2 libir-ra
u4-ul-li2-a-ta
ba-du3-a ba-til
mu-na-du3
ki-bi-sze3
bi2-in-gi4-a
suhusz-bi

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Middle Babylonian (ca. 1400-1100 BC)) — BM 090715. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: British Museum, London, UK (P428301) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-12/v4-interpretation).

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