Position in chronology
DP 308
About this tablet
A receipt from the great household of the goddess Baba at Girsu, in southern Iraq, around 2350 BCE. A freshwater fisherman named E-igara-su hands over 2,400 split and dried carp, and the estate's chief administrator, En-iggal, books them into the fish store. The fish belong to the goddess Baba, whose estate was managed by Sasa, queen of Lagash and wife of the reforming king Uru-inimgina (Urukagina) — and the tablet is dated to his fourth year. It is one of hundreds of such records from the Baba archive, the single richest window we have onto the day-to-day economy of a Sumerian temple household.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Received: 2,400 split carp from the é-DU.DU.DU.DU fishery, delivered by E-igara-su, a freshwater fisherman. En-iggal, the estate overseer, entered them into the fish storehouse. The consignment is the property of the goddess Baba, whose household is administered by Queen Sasa, wife of King Uru-inimgina of Lagash. Dated to the king's fourth year.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2,400 (4 geš'u) split eštub-carp, fish of the é-DU.DU.DU.DU; E-igara-su, the fisherman of sweet water, brought (them). En-iggal, the overseer, delivered (them) into the fish storehouse (é-ur₃) of fish. Fish, the property of Baba. Sasa, wife of URU-KA-gi-na (Uru-inimgina/Urukagina), king of Lagash. (Year) 4.
Our translation engine — Opus 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(gesz'u@c) esztub dar-ra ku6 e2-DU-DU-DU-DU-ka-kam e2-i3-gara2-su3 szu-ku6 a du10-ga-ke4 mu-de6 en-ig-gal nu-banda3 e2-ur3 ku6-ka i3-kux(DU) ku6 u2-rum ba-ba6 sa6-sa6 dam URU-KA-gi-na lugal lagasz-ka 4(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 308. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P220958) — 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.