Position in chronology
DP 264
About this tablet
An administrative receipt from the Sumerian city-state of Lagash (found at Girsu, modern Tello), written around 2350 BCE in the household of the ruler's wife — the 'Women's House'. It records that a storeroom official named En-šu, keeper of the oil flasks, returned four jugs of scented oil, which the well-known estate overseer En-iggal then decanted at the palace during a named festival month. Tablets like this, tracking every jar of perfume through named officials, show how tightly the earliest state economies were audited.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Receipt: four jugs of perfumed oil (plus two of the larger kur-vessels) were handed back by En-šu, the official in charge of the oil flasks. En-iggal, the estate overseer, then poured the oil out at the Women's House. Logged in the month 'barley and water for the sheep of Ningirsu', year 2. In today's terms: a stock-return and dispensing slip from the palace storeroom, signed off by the chief administrator.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: 4 jugs of aromatic oil for the feet(?) — the kur-vessels thereof being 2 — En-šu, the keeper of the šagan-flasks, returned into (his) hand. Reverse: En-iggal, the overseer, in the month 'barley [(and) water] for the sheep of Ningirsu', in the Women's House (E-munus) poured out the oil. (Year) 2.
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
4(asz@c) dug i3-ir-a giri3 dug kur-bi 2(disz@t)-am6 en-szu ka-szagan-ke4 szu-a bi2-gi4 en-ig-gal nu-banda3 iti udu-sze3 sze [a] nin-gir2-[su]-ka-ka e2-munus-a i3-de2 2(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 264. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P220914) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.