A royal brick inscription of Gudea (E3/1.1.7.62; BM No. 90289)
Introduction
This post presents my translation of a royal brick inscription of Gudea wherein he documents his achievement of the construction of Ningišzida’s E-girsu temple. 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. Deriving from Tell Tello, Iraq (ancient Girsu), this fired clay brick with stamped inscription is currently housed at the British Museum (museum number: 90289); its dimensions are 31 cm in length, 31 cm in width, and 6.5 cm. thick.
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.
Images and Line Drawing
Above: images of E3/1.1.7.62 (BM No. 90289) from the British Museum website. Available here.
Transliteration
Morphological Analysis
Translation
For Ningišzida his (personal-)god, Gudea the ruler of Lagaš who built the E-ninnu-temple of Ningirsu, he built his (i.e., Ningišzida’s) E-girsu-temple.
Commentary
- What makes this inscription unique from the previously discussed brick inscriptions of Gudea (E3.1.1.7.64) and Ur-Nammu (E3/2.1.1.33; E3/2.1.1.4) is the addition of the phrase /lú é.ninnu ning̃írsú.ak.ak ì.n.dù.a/ ‘the man who built the E-ninnu temple of Ningirsu’. This additional material is part of Gudea’s epithet and falls within the syntactic category of the sentence’s subject. Note the following:
- /lú/ (lit., ‘man’) functioning as a relative pronoun
- The writing dnin-g̃ir2-su2-ka reflects /ning̃írsú.ak.ak/, i.e. a double genitive construction with the first genitive /.ak/ functioning as an internal genitive of ning̃írsú (lit. ‘lord/lady of Girsu’) and the second genitive combining together é.ninnu with ning̃írsú (i.e., ‘the E-ninnu of Ningirsu’)
- The verbal form is ḫamṭu transitive 3rd sg. animate comprised of a conjugation prefix /ì/, ḫamṭu transitive 3rd sg. anim. pronominal pref. /n/, the verbal base /dù/ ‘to build, construct,’ and the /a/ nominalizing suffix which functions with the relative pron. /lú/ to create the sense of “the one who did X”
- The /í/ conjugation prefix can replace the mu- without signaling a fundamental difference in meaning except that it generally appears to be more neutral with respect to agentivity and animacy (Woods 2008, pp. 134-135). Woods writes, “The prefix i- is used when there is a discourse requirement to defocus, or more specifically to background, certain information, decreasing its topicality and salience vis-à-vis mu-” (ibid., p. 135).
- The main verb of the sentence, namely /mu.na.(n.)dù(.∅)/, 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 /.n/ as well as implied zero-marked 3rd sg. obj. suffix.
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- The /mu/ conjugation prefix appears to be associated with a relatively high degree of agentivity and animacy (see Woods 2008, p. 111).
- Syntactically, the inscription comprises a front dislocated indirect (dative) object (“For Ningišzida his god, …”) followed by the normal SOV word order:
- subject: “Gudea the ruler of Lagaš who built the E-ninnu-temple of Ningirsu”
- object: “his (i.e., Ningišzida’s) E-girsu-temple”
- verb: “he built it”
Bibliography
Edzard, Dietz Otto. Gudea and His Dynasty. Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, vol. 3/1. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.
Volk, Konrad. A Sumerian Chrestomathy. Subsidia et Instrumenta Linguarum Orientis 5. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2012.
Woods, Christopher. The Grammar of Perspective: The Sumerian Conjugation Prefixes as a System of Voice. Cuneiform Monographs 32. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2008.
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)