Position in chronology
CST 001
About this tablet
A livestock accounting tablet from Girsu (modern Tello, southern Iraq), dating to the Early Dynastic III period, roughly 2500–2350 BCE. It tallies a flock of 82 sheep and lambs belonging to an official named Enda-nirgal — a šubur worker-category under a superintendent — kept at an establishment called 'the house of the street.' The scribe carefully distinguishes early-born spring lambs from late-born ones, and separates male from female in each cohort, revealing the seasonal precision that Sumerian temple herd managers applied to even a modestly-sized flock. The tablet now resides at the John Rylands Library in Manchester.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Enda-nirgal's flock totaled 82 animals: thirty-three breeding ewes, twenty-nine rams, eight female and five male lambs born in the early season, and four female and three male lambs from the later season. All were classed as pasture-fed sheep. Enda-nirgal held the rank of šubur under a superintendent, and the animals were kept at the facility known as 'the house of the street.' An official named Lugal-ikuš carried out or oversaw the collection. The closing line records one additional balancing entry whose precise administrative meaning is difficult to recover today.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine33 mother ewes 29 male sheep (30 minus 1) 8 female spring lambs 5 male spring lambs 4 female late-born lambs 3 male late-born lambs Total: 82 — their ewes and lambs Pasture-fed sheep (Account) of Enda-nirgal Šubur (dependent worker / labor category) Superintendent (nu-banda₃) At the house of the street Gathered / collected Lugal-ikuš [Was tallied alongside]: 1 [special unit]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
3(u@c) 3(asz@c) u8-ama 3(u@c) la2 1(asz@c) udu-nita 8(asz@c) MUNUS-U8 sila4 nim 5(asz@c) sila4 nita sila4 nim 4(asz@c) MUNUS-U8 e3-li 3(asz@c) sila4 nita e3-li szu-nigin2 1(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) 2(asz@c) u8 sila4-bi-ta udu u2-rum en-da-nir-gal2-kam szubur nu-banda3 e2 e-sir2-ra-ka e-ur4 lugal-i3-kusz2 e-da-se12 1(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — CST 001. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK (P221751) — 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.