Position in chronology
CDLI Literary 000365, ex. 053
About this tablet
A fragment of a school copy of the Sumerian poem 'Gilgamesh and Huwawa,' written by a student or scribe at Nippur in southern Iraq around 1800 BCE — one of dozens of surviving exemplars of this classic. The passage catches the hero at the moment he prepares his famous expedition to the Cedar Mountain: Enkidu warns that the sun-god Utu must be informed, and Gilgamesh duly makes offerings and prays for divine backing. It is a small window onto both the oldest epic tradition in world literature and the classroom culture that preserved it.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The readable portion opens mid-speech, with Enkidu advising Gilgamesh: if you're going into the mountains, the sun-god Utu has to hear about it from us first — the mountains, especially the cedar-felling grounds, are Utu's jurisdiction. So Gilgamesh takes a white goat kid, hugs a second kid to his chest as a sacrificial gift, raises a holy staff to his nose in the gesture of prayer, and calls out to Utu: 'I'm going to enter the mountains — stand by me! I'm going to enter the mountains of felled cedar — stand by me!' The lines before and after this passage are lost to breakage.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Beginning broken) 1. "[... if today you are going to] enter [the mountains ...], 2. [...] youthful Utu should [know about it from us]. 3. [...] the decisions concerning [the mountains are Utu's business]; 4. the decisions concerning [the mountains] of felled cedar are youthful Utu's — Utu should know about it from us." 5. [Then] Gilgamesh took hold of a white kid; 6. he clasped [a brown] kid, a sacrificial offering, [to his breast]; 7. [in his hand] he held the holy staff before his nose, 8. as he spoke to [Utu of heaven]: 9. "[Utu, I am going to] enter [the mountains] — [be my] helper! 10. [I am going to] enter [the mountains of felled cedar — be my helper!]" (Remainder broken)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[...]-ku4#?-ku4#?-[...] [x x] szul# utu he2-me-da-[x x] [x x] dim2-ma-bi [x x] [x x] eren#-ku5 dim2-ma-bi szul utu-[x] utu he2-me-da-an-zu# [x] bil3-ga-mes masz2 babbar2-ra szu im-mi-in-tag [x x] masz2-da-ri-a [x x] i-im-tab [x x] gidri ku3 kiri3-ni ba-da-an-gal2 [...]-ra gu3 mu-un-na-de2-e [...]-in-ku4-ku4-de3 a2-dah#-[...] [...]-in#-ku4#-ku4#-de3# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — CDLI Literary 000365, ex. 053. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CBS 15092 (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P269653). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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