Position in chronology
RIME 4.04.01.04, ex. add144
About this tablet
A royal building inscription of Sîn-kāšid, an Amorite king who ruled the southern Mesopotamian city of Uruk around 1860 BCE. It commemorates the building of his royal palace, linked to his rebuilding of the Eanna, the ancient temple of the goddess Inanna. This short text is one of the most frequently copied inscriptions from ancient Iraq — stamped and inscribed on hundreds of bricks, cones, and tablets from his palace — making it a kind of mass-produced royal signature.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Sîn-kāšid — a powerful man, king of Uruk and king of the Amnanum tribe, the patron who provides for the Eanna temple — announces that when he rebuilt the Eanna, he also built his royal palace. In effect: 'I, the king, restored the great temple of this city, and I built the palace from which I rule.' A brief, formulaic proclamation stamped onto the building itself so no one would forget who made it.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineSîn-kāšid, mighty man, king of Uruk, king of the Amnanum, provider of the Eanna — when the Eanna he built, his palace of kingship he built.
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
suen-ga-szi-id nita kal-ga lugal unu-ga lugal am-na-nu-um u2-a e2-an-na u4 e2-an-na mu-du3-a# e2-gal nam-lugal-la-ka-ni mu-du3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Early Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1900 BC)) — RIME 4.04.01.04, ex. add144. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Kress 231 (private: anonymous, Germany) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472747). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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