Position in chronology
DP 341
About this tablet
A small, palm-sized accounting tablet from Girsu in the state of Lagash, written some 2,400 years before the Common Era. It records two consignments of river fish — 300 gir-fish and 600 sumaš-fish contributed by the city-ruler, and a further 360 sumaš-fish contributed by his wife — all of them strung up and set aside for the food-offerings made to the gods. The whole stock is booked as being in the keeping of an official named Enna-udmu, and the text closes with the number of the regnal year. Tablets like this one are the everyday ledgers of the Lagash temple household, in which the ruling couple's piety was recorded with the same bookkeeping precision as a delivery of grain.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Fish received for the offering table: 300 gir-fish (water-treated) and 600 sumaš-fish from the governor, strung and set aside for the god's meal; another 360 sumaš-fish from his wife, likewise strung and set aside. A further lot of fish was issued against labor-share. All of it is held on account by Enna-udmu. Year 4.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine300 gir-fish, a-de2 (water-poured); 600 sumaš-fish — the ruler (ensi) tied them up for the food-offering (nidba). 360 sumaš-fish — the woman (the ruler's wife) tied them up for the food-offering (nidba). Fish, issued as a2 (labor-share); Enna-udmu — they are what is at his disposal. (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
5(gesz2@c) gir a-de2 1(gesz'u@c) sumasz ensi2-ke4 nidba!-sze3 i3-kesz2 6(gesz2@c) sumasz munus-e nidba!-sze3 i3-kesz2 ku6 a2 e3-e3 en-na-u4-mu an-da-gal2-la-am6 4(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 341. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P220991) — 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.