Position in chronology
DP 219
About this tablet
A small administrative record from the Sumerian city of Girsu, around 2350 BCE, from the archives of the great household run by the ruler's wife. It notes that a single ram was cooked in the institutional kitchen as a special meal for Bara-irnun, the wife of a felt-worker named Alla, on the occasion of her giving birth. The animal came from the stock of Enku, the professional animal-fattener, and the outlay was duly booked under the heading 'sheep consumed.' It is a rare, humane glimpse of bureaucracy: even a new mother's celebratory dinner passed through the accountants.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One ram was issued for Bara-irnun, wife of Alla the felt-worker, because she had just given birth. At the end of the month of the festival of the god Lugal-Urub, the kitchen prepared it for her as a fine meal. The expense is filed under 'sheep consumed,' and the animal was supplied by Enku, the fattener in charge of livestock being fed up for slaughter. Recorded in year 4.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 ram — for Bara-irnun, the wife of Alla the felt-worker, when she had given birth to a child: at the end of the month of the festival of Lugal-Urub it was nicely prepared for her in the kitchen. Sheep consumed. (From) Enku, the animal fattener it is. (Year) 4.
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1(asz@c) udu-nita bara2-ir-nun dam al-la tug2-du8-a-ke4 dumu i3-tu-da-a iti ezem lugal-uru11-ka til-la-ba e2-muhaldim-ma ba-na-sa6 udu gu7-a en-ku3 kuruszda-kam 4(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 219. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P220869) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.