Position in chronology
CUSAS 35, 124
About this tablet
An Early Dynastic barley disbursement record from Adab in southern Iraq, dating to roughly 2500–2350 BCE. It logs allocations of barley from a storehouse across several recipients tied to New Year festival provisioning: a cloth-fuller, female workers attached to an institution called the 'house of the children,' a person or office named ENGUR-TUM, and a group of foot-runners or messengers. The closing lines identify Di-Utu, a nu-banda (a military-administrative officer, roughly a 'lieutenant'), as the official who formally made the disbursement. The tablet is a piece of the everyday grain-accounting machinery that kept a Sumerian institutional household running.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
From the storehouse, [a broken number plus] one barig of barley was released for the cloth-fuller, as part of the New Year festival provisioning overseen by the minister's inspector. The accounts then list further allocations: one gur and one barig for female workers from the children's house, nine measures for ENGUR-TUM, and four ban for the runners. The barley was duly delivered. Di-Utu, the lieutenant, is recorded as having handed it over to the recipient. The last few lines are partially broken.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[n] 1 barig of barley — gur: (for the) garment-fuller (tug₂-du₈), from the storehouse. New Year (festival): the sukkal (minister/vizier). Its maškim (inspector/supervisor): 1 (gur) 1 barig — female workers, 2 ban — house of the children (e₂-dumu). 9 (units) — ENGUR-TUM. 4 ban — foot-runners (giri₃-giri₃). Barley deliv[ered]. To h[im] [he] g[ave]. Di-[Utu], nu-[banda₃] (lieutenant/captain).
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[n] 1(barig@c) sze gur tug2#-du8 unu#-kam za3#?-mu sukkal maszkim-bi 1(asz@c) 1(barig@c) geme2 2(ban2@c) e2-dumu 1(u@c) la2 1(asz@c) ENGUR-TUM 4(ban2@c) giri3-giri3# sze DU#-[a?] na-[ni] in#-[na-szum2] di#-[utu] nu-[banda3]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — CUSAS 35, 124. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P252723) — 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.