Position in chronology
DP 151
About this tablet
A grain-ration account from the temple household of the goddess Baba at Girsu, in the city-state of Lagash, around 2350 BCE. It totals the barley handed out to three groups — men holding subsistence plots, porters, half-blind workers, craftsmen and miscellaneous dependents, and the temple's regular offerings — coming to roughly 138 gur of barley drawn from Baba's granary. The distribution was carried out by the steward En-šu-gi-gi on behalf of Sasa, the queen and wife of Urukagina, the last ruler of Lagash, in his sixth year, month eight. Texts like this are the core of the famous Baba archive, the best-documented temple economy of the Early Dynastic period, and they show a queen directly administering a great institutional household.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Summary of barley disbursements: 67 gur less 2 ban, in standard measure, as rations for the men holding subsistence plots; 29 gur, 1 barig, 2 ban as rations for the porters, the igi-nu-du₈ laborers, the workshop craftsmen, and assorted registered staff; and 42 gur, 1 barig, 2 ban set aside for the regular temple offerings, with the supplementary portion accounted for. Grand total: 138 gur and 2 ban of barley, standard measure — the rations and set-aside grain of the Baba temple, drawn from the temple's adjoining granary. En-šu-gi-gi, the steward, made the distribution. Issued for Sasa, wife of Urukagina, king of Lagash. Year 6, eighth distribution.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineTotal: 67 gur less 2 ban (of barley), by the standard (sag-gal) gur — barley rations of the men who hold subsistence allotments. 29 gur, 1 barig, 2 ban: barley rations of the porters (íl), the igi-nu-du₈ workers, the craftsmen of the workshop, and the various šà-dub personnel. 42 gur, 1 barig, 2 ban: barley set out as the regular (sá-du₁₁) provisions, its bar-portion being on hand. Grand total: 140 less 2 gur, 2 ban of barley, by the standard gur — barley rations and barley set out, of the House of Baba. From the granary of the House of Baba, the adjoining one. En-šu-gi₄-gi₄, the steward (agrig), distributed them to them. Sasa, wife of URU-KA-gi-na (Uru'inimgina/Urukagina), king of Lagaš. 6th (year). It was the 8th (distribution).
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
szu-nigin2 1(gesz2@c) 7(asz@c) la2 2(ban2@c) gur saggal sze-ba lu2 szuku dab5-ba-ne 3(u@c) la2 1(asz@c) 1(barig@c) 2(ban2@c) sze-ba il2 igi-nu-du8 gesz-kin-ti sza3-dub didli 4(u@c) 2(asz@c) 1(barig@c) 2(ban2@c) sze gar sa2-du11 bar-bi gal2 gu2-an-sze3 2(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) la2 2(asz@c) 2(ban2@c) sze gur saggal sze-ba sze gar e2 ba-ba6-ka guru7 e2 ba-ba6-ke4 us2-sa-ta en-szu-gi4-gi4 agrig-ge e-ne-ba sa6-sa6 dam URU-KA-gi-na lugal lagasz-ka 6(|ASZxDISZ@t|) 8(disz@t) ba-am6
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 151. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P220801) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.