Position in chronology
DP 648
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic administrative tablet from Girsu (Tello), part of the Lagash state archives, dating to roughly the 24th century BCE. It records the digging or maintenance of irrigation canals and ditches — naming specific waterways ('the Straight Canal,' 'the Daba canal,' 'the Great Ditch') and locating one section near a place called Dabad and another running through a field belonging to someone named Uriru. The work was carried out under Enigal, a nubanda (overseer/inspector) who appears repeatedly in the well-known Lagash temple archive under the rulers Lugalanda and Urukagina — one of the most heavily documented officials of pre-Sargonic Mesopotamia. Tablets like this show how closely the temple administration tracked irrigation labor, since canals were the lifeline of Sumerian agriculture.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet logs a stretch of canal-digging work. It records 60 ninda (roughly 360 meters) of the canal called 'Straight,' and 10 ninda of the Daba canal, which together make up the 'Great Ditch.' It then adds 140½ rope-lengths of ditch situated at the mouth of a place called Dabad, plus another ditch running through the field belonging to Uriru. The overseer Enigal was responsible for the job, and the tablet closes by noting that hoe-work was carried out, tallied at 4 units in the scribes' labor-counting notation.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(gešʼu=60) ninda: the canal Sisa ("Straight Canal"). 10 ninda: the canal Daba — it is the Great Ditch. 140 ½ eš2-ninda: it is the ditch that is (located) at the mouth/opening of Dabad, it is the ditch of the field of Uriru. Enigal, the overseer (nubanda) — hoe-work was performed: 4 (units, special labor-notation ASZxDISZ).
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(gesz2@c) nindax(DU) i7 si-sa2 1(u@c) nindax(DU) i7 da-ba pa5 gu-la-am6 2(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) 1/2(asz@c) esz2 nindax(DU) pa5 da-bad3-ka-gal2-la-am6 pa5 GAN2 uri3-ru2-a-kam en-ig-gal nu-banda3 al bi2-du3 4(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 648. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P221298) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
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.