Position in chronology
DP 079
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic administrative tablet from the palace archive of Girsu (ancient Tello), recording a single sheep disbursed for the household of Bara-namtara, wife of Lugalanda, ensi (ruler) of Lagash. Bara-namtara ran a large economic household in her own right, and dozens of similar tablets from her archive track deliveries of livestock, wool, and rations by name. Here an official named Muti-la apparently delivers the animal at a named canal-mouth, and a herding official called Ur-du6, holding the title šuš3 ('cowherd/overseer of livestock'), is recorded as responsible for the transaction — the everyday bookkeeping of a 24th-century BCE Sumerian city-state.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One sheep — a fattened ram — was issued from stock. The transaction was handled under the authority of Bara-namtara, wife of Lugalanda, the ruler of Lagash. It happened at the mouth of a canal (probably called something like 'Pirig-tur-gin-du'), where an official named Muti-la brought the animal in to her. The sheep was then consumed, presumably as an offering or ration. Ur-du6, the livestock overseer, is named as the official on record for the entry, though the last several lines of the tablet are damaged and partly restored from similar texts.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 ram, a bar-nigin (rounded-up/fattened ram) — disbursed. Bara-namtara, (wife of) the ensi (ruler of Lagash), at the mouth of the [Pirig-tur-gin-du] canal, Muti-la(?) [delivered] to her. [Sheep consumed (as offering)]. Ur-du6, the cowherd (šuš3-official).
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 bar nigin2-na ba-ba6 bara2-nam-tar-ra ensi2 ka pirig-[tur-gin7]-du-[ka] mu-[ti]-la-[a] [mu-na-kux(DU)] [udu gu7-a] [ur-du6] szusz3-[kam]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 079. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P220729) — 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.