Position in chronology
DP 085
About this tablet
This is a small clay administrative tablet from the pre-Sargonic palace archive at Girsu (modern Tello), part of a large group of records tracking regular offerings of livestock — lambs and goats — delivered to Baranamtara, wife of the ruler Lugalanda, around 2400 BCE. The animals were supplied by Enku, an official titled 'kuruszda' (livestock fattener), and earmarked for temple staff such as a herald's wife and the chief priest of the goddess Nanše. Tablets like this one, still enclosed in fragments of their original clay envelope (visible around the tablet in the photograph), formed part of the meticulous bookkeeping of the Lagash state temple economy, one of the best-documented bureaucracies of the third millennium BCE.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This record logs small livestock deliveries handled by the palace household. One lamb was set aside as a regular offering (the rest of that entry is lost). A goat was designated for a particular day connected to the wife of Lala the herald, and another goat — a short-horned one — went to the chief priest of the goddess Nanše. The whole batch was delivered during the month of the 'Festival of Lugal-uru11,' once that festival period was over. The livestock fattener Enku is named as the one who brought the animals in to Baranamtara, the ruler's wife. A final notation, possibly a tally or seal reference, reads '5,' but its exact meaning is unclear.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 lamb — [regular offering (maš-da-re-a)] — [...] [1 goat] — (for) the day of Ninuma, wife of Lala the herald; 1 short-horned goat — (for) the sanga-priest of Nanše. Month: "Festival of Lugal-uru11" — completed. To Baranamtara it was delivered. Enku, the animal-fattener (is responsible). ... 5.
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) sila4 [masz-da-re-a] [...] [1(asz@c) masz] UD nin-u3-ma dam la-la nimgir 1(asz@c) masz lugud2-da sanga nansze iti ezem lugal-uru11-ka til-la-ba bara2-nam-tar-ra mu-na-kux(DU) en-ku3 kuruszda-e ba-ra 5(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 085. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P220735) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (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.