Position in chronology
CST 172
About this tablet
This is an Old Akkadian farm work record, from roughly 2300–2150 BCE, of unknown origin in Mesopotamia and now in Claremont, California. It records how much barley land was reaped and how many days of work each harvest took, and groups the plots under the foremen of the work gangs: Ur-gigir, Lugal-si and Ur-dumu. The figures add up exactly, so the text shows how carefully Akkadian-period estates tracked labour against surveyed land. The name Lugal-KA at the end probably belongs to the official responsible for the account.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Harvest report. Ur-Gigir's crew reaped five plots of barley: one of 2 bur 1 eše, which took two days, and four more of 1 bur 1 eše 1 iku, 1 bur 1 iku, 1 bur 1 eše and 1 bur 3 iku, each done in a day. That comes to 7 bur 5 iku of barley land harvested in six working days. Lugal-si's crew reaped 1 bur 2 iku in one day. Ur-dumu's crew reaped 1 eše 3 iku in one day. The record ends with the name Lugal-KA.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 2 bur 1 eše of field: 2 days; 2. 1 bur 1 eše 1 iku of field: 1 day; 3. 1 bur 1 iku of field: 1 day; 4. 1 bur 1 eše of field: 1 day; 5. 1 bur 3 iku of field: 1 day; 6. total: 7 bur 5 iku of field, 7. barley harvested; 8. labour: 6 days; 9. foreman: Ur-gigir. 10. 1 bur 2 iku of field: 1 day; 11. foreman: Lugal-si. 12. 1 eše 3 iku of field: 1 day; 13. foreman: Ur-dumu. 14. Lugal-KA.
Our translation engine — Opus 5.5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
2(bur3) 1(esze3) GAN2 2(disz@t) u4 1(bur3) 1(esze3) 1(iku@t) GAN2 1(disz@t) u4 1(bur3) 1(iku@t) GAN2 1(disz@t) u4 1(bur3) 1(esze3) GAN2 1(disz@t) u4 1(bur3) 3(iku@t) GAN2 1(disz@t) u4 szunigin 7(bur3) 5(iku@t) GAN2 sze sagx(|SZE.KIN|)-a a2 6(disz@t) u4 ugula ur-gigir2 1(bur3) 2(iku@t) GAN2 1(disz@t) u4 ugula lugal-si 1(esze3) 3(iku@t) GAN2 1(disz@t) u4 ugula ur-dumu lugal-KA
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — CST 172. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, California, USA (P462377) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.