Position in chronology
DP 435
About this tablet
This small Presargonic tablet from Girsu (ancient Lagash), dated to Year 1 of the ruler Uru-inimgina (also known by the older reading Urukagina), is a routine administrative receipt: 141 tow-ropes made from marsh reeds are issued to the boatmen and loaded onto a boat, with the transaction verified by Eniggal, a well-known inspector (nubanda) who oversaw many such deliveries in this period. It is one of thousands of small clay dockets that kept track of the labor, materials, and boats belonging to the temple and palace economy of Lagash around 2350 BCE. The tablet is interesting less for grand history than for what it reveals about the everyday logistics of river transport — how reed cordage was harvested from the marshes, rationed out, and put to work moving goods along the canals.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a receipt for 141 tow-ropes handed over to the boatmen, made from reeds cut in the marsh thicket and issued from the (temple) stores of Baba. The ropes were loaded onto the boat. Eniggal the inspector checked and recorded the transaction on behalf of Uru-inimgina, ruler of Lagash, in the first year (of his rule).
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine141 tow-ropes (ur3) — Gudua (gu3-du10-ga), the boatmen — (from) the marsh thicket, from (the estate of) Baba, were placed on the boat. Eniggal, the inspector, recorded (this) for him. Uru-inimgina, ruler of Lagash. Year 1.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 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
2(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) 1(asz@c) ur3 gu3-du10-ga lu2 ma2-lah5-da-ke4 tir ambar ba-ba6-ta ma2-a e-me-gar en-ig-gal nu-banda3 mu-na-szid URU-KA-gi-na ensi2 lagasz 1(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 435. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P221085) — 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.