Position in chronology
DP 178
About this tablet
A small administrative tablet from Girsu, capital district of the state of Lagash, written about 2350 BCE. It records wool issued as a payment or reward to a group of men who delivered milk to the palace — two named individuals get larger amounts, and five porters get one fleece-unit each. The authorizing figure is Baranamtara, wife of the ruler Lugalanda: her household ran its own large economy, and hundreds of such tablets from her archive survive, showing an Early Dynastic queen directing disbursements in her own name.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Wool issue: five units of sheep's wool to Abgal, two units to Nimgir-esha-tum, and one unit each to five men who haul the ma-sa₂ vessel — all of them duly received it. These are the men who delivered the fine milk. The disbursement was authorized by Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash. First regnal year.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5 (units of) wool, sheep-fleece — (for) Abgal; 2 (units of) wool, sheep-fleece — (for) Nimgir-esha-tum; 5 men who carry the ma-sa₂(-vessel) — wool, sheep-fleece, 1 (unit) each — they received (it). The men who brought the pure milk. Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash, allotted (it) to them. 1st (year).
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
5(asz@c) siki bar-udu abgal2 2(asz@c) siki bar-udu nimgir-esz3-a-tum2 5(asz@c) lu2 ma-sa2 il2-la siki bar-udu 1(asz@c)-ta szu ba-ti lu2 ga ku3 de6-a-ne bara2-nam-tar-ra dam lugal-an-da ensi2 lagasz-ka-ke4 e-ne-ba 1(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 178. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P220828) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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.