Position in chronology
DP 064
About this tablet
This is a small clay administrative tablet from the palace archive of Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of the Sumerian city-state of Lagash, around 2400 BCE. It records sheep handed over as offerings — specifically for the god Nindara and related deities — on the occasion of a temple or shrine being newly inaugurated ('her new house'). Baranamtara ran an extensive household economy at Girsu and hundreds of tablets like this one survive, tracking livestock, rations, and cultic disbursements under named officials such as Enku, the animal-fattener responsible for the flock.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet logs three sheep set aside as offerings: one for the god Nindara, one for a goddess called Ninmush-bar, and one for Ninmar. The occasion was the dedication of Nindara's newly built shrine — his statue or symbol was ceremonially brought into the new building. Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda the ruler of Lagash, authorized the sheep to be handed over, and they were consumed as part of the offering ritual. The animals were drawn from the flock under the charge of Enku, the livestock-fattener. The tally at the end records a total of two (animals, or occasions) for this transaction.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 male sheep — (for) Nindara; 1 sheep — (for) Ninmush-bar(?); 1 sheep — (for) Ninmar; [when] Nindara('s statue) [was] led/brought [into] her [new] house, Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash, had (it) allotted (as offering); sheep consumed (in offering). (Under) Enku, the fattener. Total: 2.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(asz@c) udu-nita nin-[dar] 1(asz@c) udu# nin-[musz3]-bar!? 1(asz@c) udu nin-[mar] [u4? nin-dar?] [e2] gibil-na [i3-lah5-a] [bara2-nam]-tar-ra dam lugal-an-da ensi2 [lagasz-ke4] gesz be2-tag udu gu7-a en-ku3 kuruszda-kam 2(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 064. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P220714) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (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.