Position in chronology
CUSAS 35, 142
About this tablet
A small Early Dynastic administrative tablet from the city of Adab in southern Iraq, dating to roughly 2600–2350 BCE. It records disbursements of emmer flour and barley to a named individual (Ur-ni) and — more unusually — to a group of people who had traveled from the city of Isin, rations anchored to the month of the barley harvest. The reference to a 'children's house' (e2-dumu) points to a specific institution, possibly a scribal school or a household of palace dependents, as the source of the goods. Small enough to hold in one hand, this is the everyday paperwork of a storehouse official tracking outgoing grain.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One gur-measure of emmer flour was issued to Ur-ni. Two barig of barley went to the men who had come from Isin. One ban of bread flour was also disbursed; several further entries follow but those lines are too damaged to read in full. The whole lot was recorded as an outgoing expenditure — handed over by or through A-KA-du3, given out from the children's house — in the month of the barley harvest.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 asz (gur) of emmer flour — (for) Ur-ni. 2 barig of barley, gur — (for) the people who came from Isin. 1 ban of bread flour. [...] x [...] 1 ban of [...] 1 ban of Ur[...]- (going) out. A-KA-du3 was given to him [or: (by) An-na-šum] — (from) the children's house. Month: the barley-cutting (month 1).
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(asz@c) dabin <gur> ur2-ni 2(barig@c) sze gur lu2 isin2-ta im-gen-na-me 1(ban2@c) zi3 ninda [...] x [...] 1(ban2@c) [...] 1(ban2@c) ur2#?-[x] e3-a A-KA-du3 an-na-szum2 e2-dumu iti sze-sag11-ku5-kam
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — CUSAS 35, 142. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P252764) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
Related tablets
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.