Position in chronology
Šu-ilišu 1
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSRI(1) When Šu-ilišu, the powerful man, king of Urim, brought home (the statue of) Nanna from Anšan to Urim, then for Nanna, the most outstanding among the Anuna gods, his master, he built the Dublamah, his place of rendering judgement. He installed for him a decorated two-wing door, and dedicated it to him for his well-being. (19) Whoever gives order to perform a misdeed against this (door), transfers it to a storehouse, or makes another man raise his hand against it on account of this curse, may Nanna, my master, and Ningal, my lady, curse him!
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions — scholar edition (Vienna).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Scholarly note
Sumerian royal inscription, published in the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions (ETCSRI) by Gábor Zólyomi and collaborators. Translation reproduced from the ETCSRI edition. ORACC text Q001934.
Attribution
Image: .
Translation excerpted from Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions (ETCSRI), University of Vienna, edited by Gábor Zólyomi et al. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/etcsri/Q001934/.
Related tablets
Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
An early witness to systematic administrative notation at Kish. Its signs and numerals can be catalogued, but that does not establish a full translation or prove that it is the world's first writing.
An early surviving historical monument that joins named rulers, a territorial dispute and religious oaths. It shows how a city-state turned victory into a lasting public claim, without establishing that this was the first recorded conflict.