Position in chronology
DP 546
About this tablet
This is a small clay administrative tablet from the city of Girsu (modern Tello) in southern Iraq, dating to the Early Dynastic IIIb period (roughly 2400 BCE), part of the large archive kept by the temple administration of the goddess Baba under the ruling family of Lagash. It records an agricultural loss: a specific area of farmland whose crop was eaten by locusts, and the corresponding amount of barley-seed the plow-oxen consumed, which is charged as a debt against the field and handed over to the plowman. The official En-iggal, a well-known inspector (nu-banda3) frequently attested in this archive, issued the barley from the 'new granary,' and the document was filed as the fourth in a numbered series. It is a vivid glimpse of how Sumerian bureaucrats tracked crop failure, pest damage, and grain accounting on individual fields.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A plot of land measuring 2 bur3 and 2 eše3-iku had its crop destroyed by locusts. The barley seed that the plow-oxen ate in the process is valued at 8 gur (in the sag-gal measure), plus 1 more gur of barley, and this amount is to be charged repeatedly against the field's account. The person responsible, Inimanizi, is to hand it over to the head plowman. This was recorded in the month called 'Wool Disbursement.' En-iggal, the inspector, had the barley issued to him from the new granary. This is the fourth such record in the series.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 bur3 2 eše3 iku — field(s) consumed by locusts. The seed-grain, barley that the oxen consumed, its equivalent: 8 gur, sag-gal measure. 1 gur barley — barley to be repeatedly charged against the field; (concerning) Inimanizi, to the chief plowman. Month: "Wool disbursement." En-iggal, the inspector, from the new granary had it brought out/allotted for him. 4th (entry/document).
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
2(bur3@c) 2(esze3@c) iku bir5-re2 gu7-a sze-numun sze gu4-re6 gu7-bi 8(asz@c) gur saggal 1(asz@c) sze sze asza5-ge tag-tag-dam inim-ma-ni-zi sag-apin-ra iti siki-ba-a en-ig-gal nu-banda3 ganun gibil-ta e-na#-ta-gar 4(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 546. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P221196) — 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.