Position in chronology
A prayer for Samsu-iluna (Samsu-iluna G)
Written in modern English
Seated in majesty on the golden throne of kingship, head held high in heroic power, Samsu-iluna — king of Ur and Larsa, king of Sumer and Akkad — offered greeting to the great gods Enki, Asalim, and the son of Eridu. An Akkadian gloss in the margin names these same deities as Ea, Marduk, and Asalluhi, and addresses Samsu-iluna directly as 'double king', calling on him to sit with that same majesty on his golden throne.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSLHe greeted Enki, Asalim and the son of Eridug (An Akkadian gloss has: Ea, Marduk and Asalluha), the great gods, while sitting majestically on the golden throne of kingship with head high in heroic strength in its midst (An Akkadian gloss has: on your golden throne of kingship, whose head is raised high in the strength of your heroism, may you sit majestically, Samsu-iluna, double king), the king of Urim and king of Larsa, the king of Sumer and Akkad.
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature — scholar edition (Oxford, Black/Cunningham/Robson/Zólyomi).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Scholarly note
Composition c.2.8.3.7 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.2.8.3.7: A prayer for Samsu-iluna (Samsu-iluna G). 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.2.8.3.7.
Related tablets
Related sources
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.
A major witness to the Mesopotamian Flood tradition and its relationship to later biblical literature. The date of this particular copy must be distinguished from the older history of the story.
An object naming and depicting a powerful priestess and royal daughter around 2300 BCE. Enheduanna is also a landmark in named literary authorship, but that literary legacy must be distinguished from this disk’s dedication.