Šu-Suen 03

(i 1) For Enlil, the king of all lands, his master. (iv 2) Even the young men who evaded the battle and took refuge like birds in their cities could not escape his hand. He shrieked at their cities like an Anzu-bird. He reduced their cities and settlements to ruin mounds. He destroyed their walls completely. (iv 15) He blinded all the young men of the cities he had conquered, and made them serve in the orchards of Enlil and Ninlil and in the orchards of the great gods. (iv 23) He presented the female workers of the cities he conquered to the textile mills of Enlil and Ninlil and to the…

Source: Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions (ETCSRI), University of Vienna, edited by Gábor Zólyomi et al. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/etcsri/Q000992/

Why it matters

Records Šu-Suen's systematic disposal of conquered populations — blinded men assigned to temple orchards, women to textile mills — documenting the Ur III state's institutionalised exploitation of war captives as temple labour.

Transliteration

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 Q000992.