Before Noah, Before Gilgamesh: A 4,500-Year-Old Sumerian Flood Text in Its First Published English Translation — The Nanše Cylinder (OIM A01116)

A first published English translation of a Sumerian composition inscribed on a clay cylinder from Adab (modern Bismaya, Iraq), Early Dynastic IIIb, c. 2500–2340 BC, held by the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago (OIM A01116; CDLI P222241). The cylinder, found in three fragments in 1904 and published only as a hand copy in 1930, had never been edited or translated. This deposit contains the article presenting the translation (26 of 61 preserved line-units rendered; broken or uncertain readings marked, nothing restored silently), the full working dossier with print-status checks and collation notes, and the follow-up studies of the cylinder's missing lower fragment. The translation rests on the open transliteration by Barış Özdemir (ePSD, via CDLI, 2024), checked against Daniel Luckenbill's 1930 hand copy. The observation that the fragments 'have not been edited yet' is Jana Matuszak's (Iraq 86, 2024).