Position in chronology
RIME 3/2.01.03.15, ex. add69
About this tablet
A royal building inscription of Amar-Suena, third king of the Third Dynasty of Ur (reigned about 2046–2038 BCE). This is one of many identical copies — usually stamped on bricks — commemorating the king's rebuilding of the Abzu, the temple of the water-god Enki at Eridu, one of Mesopotamia's oldest sacred sites. The surviving portion preserves the end of the king's titulary and the dedication; the opening lines with his name are broken away but are securely restored from the many duplicates.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The readable portion says: this mighty king — king of Ur, king of the four quarters of the world, devoted supporter of Enlil's temple — built the Abzu, the beloved shrine of Enki, for Enki, the king he loved. The beginning of the text, which named the king (Amar-Suena) and his divine election at Nippur, is broken off, and the final verb 'he built' is restored from the many surviving duplicates of this same inscription.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[(Amar-Suena, called by name by Enlil in Nippur, supporter of)] the temple [of Enlil], mighty king, king of Ur, king of the four quarters — for Enki, his beloved king, his beloved Abzu [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
e2# [en-lil2-ka] lugal# kal#-ga# lugal uri5-ma lugal an-ub-da limmu2-ba-ke4 en-ki lugal ki#-ag2#-ga2#-ni#-ir# abzu# ki#-[ag2-ga2-ni] [mu-na-du3]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — RIME 3/2.01.03.15, ex. add69. This record has no stored scholarly English translation; the existence of published translations has not been checked; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: X.3.148 (Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA) — from uncertain (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P433122). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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