Position in chronology
BIN 08, 115
About this tablet
An Early Dynastic land register from Mesopotamia, cataloguing several parcels of orchard and field land in archaic area measures. The entries move from a large main garden parcel — described as 'great' — down through smaller outer plots, each linked to named individuals or institutions including a reference to a 'city-place of AN' (likely a cult centre of the sky-god). The closing formula 'mu-a-kam' marks this as an annual administrative tally. Tablets like this were the working paperwork of a temple or estate land-manager, tracking who held which plot and how large it was — the Bronze Age equivalent of a parish land registry.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The main holding amounts to 1 šar 4 bur 2 iku of orchard — a very large plot, classified as 'great.' Alongside it sit a 5-bur small garden, a 1-bur 3-iku outer field belonging to the city-settlement of the god AN, another 5-bur garden associated with Ur-en-[damaged] and a house of AN-[damaged], and a final 4-iku outer garden plot linked to someone whose name begins a-zu-zu (the first sign is illegible). The next line or two are too damaged to read in full. The tablet closes with a standard formula indicating this is the year's reckoning.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 šar 4 bur 2 iku of garden, [designated:] great, 5 bur of small garden, 1 bur 3 iku, outer field of the city-place of AN, 5 bur of garden — [potter?] Ur-en-[X], [house of] AN-[X], 4 iku, outer garden, [X] a-zu-zu [(X)], [it is] the year[ly account].
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(szar2@c)#? 4(bur3@c)# 2(iku@c) kiri6# gu-la 5(bur3@c) kiri6 tur# 1(bur3@c)# 3(iku@c)# bar asza5-ga# iri ki an-na-ke4# 5(bur3@c) kiri6# bahar2# ur-en#-[x] an-na-e2#-[x] 4(iku@c) bar kiri6# x a-zu-zu [(x)] mu-a-kam
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — BIN 08, 115. 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 (P212663) — 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.