Position in chronology
BIN 08, 043
About this tablet
An Early Dynastic administrative tablet from roughly 2600–2350 BCE recording a mixed portfolio of commodities: barley measured in large capacity units, three types of luxury textiles (bar-dul5 cloaks, aktum cloth, and fine nig2-lam2 fabric) each assigned a silver value, a she-goat, and goods delivered by canal. One entry notes an unusual barley-to-silver exchange rate with no year-date attached, suggesting this entry was exceptional or unregistered in the normal accounting cycle. The final legible line records a single individual receiving a garment directly into their own hands. This is the routine bookkeeping of a Mesopotamian institutional household — temple or palace — carefully pricing textiles in silver equivalents and tracking inflows of grain and livestock.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The record begins with a large barley deposit — 5 gur 2 barig — followed by three luxury textiles valued in silver: a bar-dul5 cloak at two-thirds of a mina, an aktum garment also at two-thirds of a mina, and two grades of fine nig2-lam2 cloth at a half-shekel and a third-shekel respectively. Next comes a note that 1 gur 2 barig of barley is worth 2 shekels of silver, but with the annotation that this rate carries no year-date — apparently an undated or exceptional entry. Then follow a single shekel of silver, a she-goat, and a further silver sum of two-thirds of a mina, all described as goods brought in by canal. The tablet closes with one person taking receipt of a garment into their own hands. The last few lines are too broken to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5 gur 2 barig of barley 1 bar-dul5 garment — silver: 2/3 mina 1 aktum garment — silver: 2/3 mina 1 nig2-lam2 cloth — [value:] ½ shekel 1 nig2-lam2 cloth — [value:] ⅓ [shekel] 1 gur 2 barig of barley — 2 shekels of silver (for which there is no year-date) 1 shekel of silver [n] 1 she-goat [n] silver — 2/3 mina brought by canal [...] brought thereto 1 — into his/her hand — a garment, gum(-quality), was received [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
5(asz@c) 2(barig@c) sze gur 1(asz@c) bar-dul5 ku3 2/3(|NINDA2x(SZE.2(ASZ@c))|) ma-na-kam 1(asz@c) aktum ku3 2/3(|NINDA2x(SZE.2(ASZ@c))|) ma-na-kam 1(asz@c) nig2-lam2 bar gin2-kam 1(asz@c) nig2-lam2 igi 3(disz@t) gal2-kam 1(asz@c) 2(barig@c) sze gur 2(disz@t) ku3 gin2-kam mu nu-gal2-la-kam 1(asz@c) ku3 gin2 [x] 1(asz@c) ud5# [n] ku3# 2/3(|NINDA2x(SZE.2(ASZ@c))|) ma-na i7# [(x)] de6-a [...] x an-na-de6 1(asz@c) szu-ni-ra (x) tug2 gum dab5 [(...)]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — BIN 08, 043. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Nies Babylonian Collection, Yale Babylonian Collection, New Haven, Connecticut, USA (P212619) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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Related sources
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.