Position in chronology
DP 370
About this tablet
This is a small Presargonic administrative tablet from Girsu (ancient Tello), dating to around 2350 BCE, in the reign of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash. It records a count of 678 bundles of rope made from marsh reed (šuszin), gathered from the marshland and formally counted out to an official named En-ušurre by the manager En-iggal. Such tablets belonged to the household administration of Baranamtara, Lugalanda's wife, whose archive is one of the richest and best-studied bureaucratic records from early Mesopotamia, tracking everything from textiles to reed and rush products supplied to the ruling family's estate.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The record states that 678 bundles of reed-cord (rope twisted from marsh šuszin-reed) were tallied, coming to a total count of 80. En-iggal, the manager, brought this in from the marsh, and it was handed over and formally counted out to En-ušurre, the official responsible for the accounts house. The entry is booked to the household of Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash, and is dated to year six (of his reign).
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine678 bundles of cord (rope) of šuszin-reed — its total tally: 80 (sar) — (under) En-iggal, the manager, from the marsh: [Mu-sig(?)] — (to) En-ušurre, the man of the accounts-house — was counted out to him. (Account of) Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash. Year 6.
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) 1(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) la2 2(asz@c) sa gu szuszin sar-bi 1(gesz2@c) 2(u@c)-am6 en-ig-gal nu-banda3 ambar-ta mu-SIG7 en-uszur3-re2 lu2 e2-nig2-ka-ra e-na-szid bara2-nam-tar-ra dam lugal-an-da ensi2 lagasz-ka 6(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 370. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P221020) — 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.