Position in chronology
DP 543
About this tablet
A grain ledger from the temple-household of the goddess Baba at Girsu, in the small Sumerian state of Lagash, written around 2350 BCE. Two withdrawals of barley — 15 gur from Baba's main granary and 16 gur 2 barig from the orchard granary — are handed over by En-iggal, the household's chief administrator, to a man named Di-Utu, who ran the plough teams of the women's estate. The barley is earmarked for two purposes only: seed for sowing and fodder for the draught oxen. En-iggal appears in hundreds of such tablets; together they form one of the most complete pictures we have of how a single ancient institution fed its fields, its animals and its workers, year by year.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Two barley withdrawals are recorded. The first, 15 gur measured on the large standard, came out of Baba's granary in the month when the grain heap was sealed with clay. The second, 16 gur and 2 barig, came out of the orchard granary in the month when Ningirsu was brought into his new temple at Antasurra. All of it is seed grain and feed for the plough oxen. En-iggal, the estate overseer, released it to Di-Utu, head ploughman of Baba's women's household. Year 4.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine15 gur of barley (by the sag-gal measure), month: "The-grain-heap-was-sealed-with-clay"; from the storehouse of Baba it was issued. 16 gur 2 barig of barley, month: "Ningirsu was conducted into the new house of Antasurra"; from the storehouse of the orchard it was issued. (This is) seed-grain and barley for feeding the oxen. To Di-Utu, chief plowman of the women('s household) of Baba, En-iggal, the overseer, issued it. 4th (year).
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1(u@c) 5(asz@c) sze gur saggal iti guru7-im-du8-a ganun ba-ba6-ta e-ta-gar 1(u@c) 6(asz@c) 2(barig@c) sze iti nin-gir2-su e2 gibil an-ta-sur-ra-ka i3-lah5-a ganun kiri6-ta e-ta-gar sze-numun sze gu4-re6 gu7-de3 di-utu sag-apin geme2-ba-ba6-ka-ra en-ig-gal nu-banda3 e-na-ta-gar 4(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 543. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P221193) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.