Position in chronology
DP 350
About this tablet
This is a small administrative tablet from Girsu (modern Tello), part of the large archive kept for the temple of the goddess Bau during the late Early Dynastic period, when officials like En-iggal the nubanda ('manager' or 'inspector') tracked incoming goods on behalf of the ruling family. Here the subject is reed bundles — hundreds of them, evidently used as fuel — brought in from date-orchard produce under the supervision of two named overseers, Ur-šerda and Inim-du, and formally received at a storehouse 'at the edge of the city.' Thousands of such receipts survive from this archive, giving historians an extraordinarily granular picture of Sumerian institutional bookkeeping nearly 4,500 years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Two overseers brought in reed bundles for fuel: Ur-šerda delivered 810 bundles, and Inim-du delivered 24. The reeds came in connection with the date-orchard produce. En-iggal, the manager, took delivery of them at the storehouse by the edge of the city. This was the second such delivery recorded.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine810 bundles of reed, fuel (u2-bil): Ur-šerda. 24 bundles of reed: Inim-du. They are the overseers. From the date(-orchard) produce it was delivered. En-iggal, the manager, (received it) at the house at the edge of the city. Delivery: 2.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1(gesz'u@c) 3(gesz2@c) 3(u@c) sa gi u2-bil ur-szer7-da 2(gesz'u@c) 2(u@c) 4(asz@c) la2 2(gesz2@c) sa gi inim-du11 ugula-me zu2-lum-ta mu-de6 en-ig-gal nu-banda3 e2 za3 iri-ka-ka i3-kux(DU) 2(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 350. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P221000) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-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.