A royal brick inscription of Gudea (E3/1.1.7.64)
Introduction
This post presents my translation of a royal brick inscription of Gudea wherein he documents his achievement of the construction of the temple of Ningišzida at Girsu. Gudea was the ruler of the city-state of Lagaš in the second half of the 22nd cent. BCE. He is known especially for his administrative achievements, into which the Gudea cones, cylinders, bricks, and statues provide insight.
In what follows, we present the brick inscription’s image and line drawing followed by a transliteration of the cuneiform, a morphological analysis, translation, and brief philological commentary. N.b., I deviate in my morphological transcription from standard convention in a few ways. For example, I supply implied morphological structures that are not identifiable in the cuneiform writing through parenthesis, e.g. (.ra) for an implied dative, as well as the auslauts of words.
Image and Line Drawing
Left: image from M. Lambert, “Deux textes de Gudéa,” RA 47/2 (1953)
Transliteration
Morphological Analysis
Translation
For Ningišzida his (personal-)god, Gudea the ruler of Lagaš built his E-girsu-temple.
Commentary
- The implied dative recipient of the verbal action is /ningišzida dig̃ir.ani/ ‘Ningišzida his god’, marked as such with the implied dative marker for animate nouns (.ra).
- Ningišzida, a chthonic deity whose name means “Lord of the True Tree,” was the son of the god Ninazu (an underworld god of healing) and the patron deity of Gudea. His chief cult place was Gishbanda, and he was associated, among other things, with vegetation.
- The agent of the verbal action is Gudea who is marked with the ergative marker /e/. The sign -ke4 after Lagaš conceals both the genitive /.ak/ and ergative case ending /e/.
- The direct object of the verb is the /é.g̃írsu.ani/ ‘his E-girsu-temple’ (or more idiomatically: ‘his temple at Girsu’) marked in the morphological transcription with the implied absolutive case ending (.∅).
- A previously-discussed clay votive cone inscription (E3/1.1.7.8) documents his construction of the E-girsu-temple of Dumuzi-abzu as well.
- The verb is ḫamṭu transitive 3rd sg. animate comprised of a conjugation prefix /mu/, dative verbal prefix /na/, and verbal base /dù/ ‘to build, construct’. Additionally, it is marked in the morphological analysis with an implied 3rd sg. anim. pronominal prefix before the verbal base (n.) as well as implied zero-marked 3rd sg. obj. suffix (.∅).
- Syntactically, the inscription comprises a front dislocated indirect (dative) object followed by the typical subject-object-verb word order (lit.: “Gudea, the temple, he built”).
Bibliography
Edzard, Dietz Otto. Gudea and His Dynasty. Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, vol. 3/1. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.
Lambert, Maurice. “Deux textes de Gudéa,” Revue d’Assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale 47, no. 2 (1953), pp. 83-84.
Thomas, Ariane, and Laurent Colonna d’Istria. “Le temple de Ningešzida à Girsu,” Akkadica 140 (2019), pp. 105-148.
About The Author
Gilgameš and Agga (Lines 1-17) 
Law Code of Lipit-Ištar (Laws 8-18; CBS8284) 
Gudea Cylinder A xviii 1-28 (E3/1.1.7.CylA) 
Gudea Cylinder A iii 1-29 (E3/1.1.7.CylA) 
Gudea Cylinder A ii 1-29 (E3/1.1.7.CylA) 
Gudea Cylinder A i 1-29 (RIME E3/1.1.7.CylA)