Position in chronology
CDLI Literary 000365, ex. 048
About this tablet
A schoolroom copy from Nippur, around 1800 BCE, of a famous passage from the Sumerian poem 'Gilgamesh and Huwawa.' Here Gilgamesh prays to the sun-god Utu, confessing what drives him to seek the Cedar Mountain: in his city people keep dying, and looking over the wall he has seen corpses drifting in the river — one day that fate will be his too. It is one of the oldest surviving meditations on human mortality, the theme that would later anchor the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Utu, let me tell you something — listen to me; let me greet you properly, and pay attention. In my city people are dying, and it breaks the heart. People just vanish, and it makes me sick inside. I leaned over the city wall and saw the corpses drifting in the river, so many the water could barely carry them. And I know it: the same thing will happen to me — that is how it goes. No one is tall enough to reach heaven. The tablet breaks off here; the opening line, addressing a 'young man, free-born son,' and the ends of most lines are lost to damage.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineYoung man, free-born son, ... [in] the mountain, what [...]? Utu, let me speak a word to you — give [your] ear to my word! Let me greet you — may you pay heed to it! In my city a man dies, and the heart is stricken; a man perishes, and [my] heart [is heavy]. I craned my neck over the city wall: corpses floating on the water ... [made the river] overflow [...]. And I too ... [...] — shall it be so for me? [Thus] it shall be. The tallest man ... [cannot stretch to heaven ...] (remainder broken)
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
gurusz dumu-gi7 ni2#-[...] kur-re a-na-[...] utu inim ga-ra-ab#-[x] inim-gu10-usz gesztu2#-[x] silim ga-ra-ab-du11 gizzal# he2-em-szi-a5 iri-ga2 lu2 ba-usz2 sza3 ba-sag3# lu2 u2-gu ba-e-de2 sza3-[...] bad3-da gu2-gu10 im-[...] ad6 a-a x x diri-[...] u3 ge26-e x x [...] ur5 he2-me-[x] lu2 sukux(SUKUD)-ra2# x x [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — CDLI Literary 000365, ex. 048. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: IM 058542 (National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad, Iraq) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P356762). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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