Position in chronology
A mythic narrative about Inana
Translation · reference
High confidence1 line fragmentary Holy Inana ....... The hero, youthful Utu, ....... At dead of night ....... E-ana ....... Inana ....... The great (?) heavens ....... unknown no. of lines missing 1 line fragmentary ...... E-ana came forth from heaven, ...... the lady of heaven set her mind to capturing the great heavens, ...... Inana set her mind to capturing the great heavens, ...... set her mind to capturing the great heavens from the ...... of heaven, ...... youthful Utu, she set her mind to capturing the great heavens. Holy Inana spoke to her brother the hero, youthful Utu: "My brother, I want to tell you something -- pay attention to my speech. ...... Utu, my twin, I want to tell you something -- pay attention to my speech."
Source: ETCSL c.1.3.5: A mythic narrative about Inana. Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Robson, E. & Zólyomi, G. (eds.), The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.1.3.5
Why it matters
Transliteration
Scholarly note
Composition c.1.3.5 in the ETCSL catalogue. Sumerian literary text reconstructed from multiple cuneiform manuscripts, the great majority Old Babylonian (c. 1900–1600 BCE). Translation reproduced from the ETCSL edition.
Attribution
Image: .
Translation excerpted from ETCSL c.1.3.5: A mythic narrative about Inana. Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Robson, E. & Zólyomi, G. (eds.), The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.1.3.5.
Related tablets
Related sources
The single most important literary discovery of the 19th century. It rewired the understanding of the Bible's literary context and proved that the Mesopotamian flood tradition is older. It is the oldest surviving epic poetry in human history.
The literary tradition is no longer anonymous from this point. Authorship — the idea that a specific human voice composes a specific work — enters the historical record with her.
The single most influential Mesopotamian king list — the model for every later attempt to chronicle the deep history of the region. It transmits the political theology of divinely granted kingship, an idea that would echo through Babylon, Assyria, and into the Hebrew Bible. The Weld-Blundell prism (WB 444) at the Ashmolean is the most complete surviving copy.