Position in chronology
DP 365
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic (Presargonic) administrative tablet from Girsu, part of the palace-and-temple bookkeeping of the city-state of Lagash around 2400 BCE. It records a shipment of 767 bundles of a wood called manu (or reed bundles), moved by boat from the city of Lagash and placed under the authority of the overseer Šeš-lu-du, then received into a reed-built storehouse ('ganun') associated with a certain Mesandu by the well-known official En-ig-gal, who held the title nubanda (inspector/overseer) under the rulers Lugalanda and Urukagina. Tablets like this one are the everyday paperwork of one of the earliest bureaucratic states in history — tracking raw materials moving between city, boat, and granary.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A shipment of 767 bundles of manu-wood (or reed bundles) was sent under the supervision of the overseer Šeš-lu-du. It traveled by boat from the city of Lagash. The goods were then handed over to En-ig-gal, the inspector, who had them stored in the reed-built granary known as 'the granary of Mesandu.' The record is noted as the second such delivery.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(gešʼu) 2(geš2) 5(u) la2 3(aš) sa ma-nu (=767 bundles of manu-wood/reed), Šeš-lu-du, the overseer (of the workers); from Lagaš, it was brought/loaded by boat; (to/by) En-ig-gal, the nubanda (inspector), (into) the reed-granary of Mesandu; delivery: 2nd.
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) 2(gesz2@c) 5(u@c) la2 3(asz@c) sa ma-nu szesz-lu2-du10 ugula lagasz-ta ma2-a e-me-gar en-ig-gal nu-banda3 ganun gi mes-an-du-ka i3-kux(DU) 2(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 365. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P221015) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-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.