Position in chronology
FAOS 15/2, 125
About this tablet
This small cushion-shaped tablet from Girsu (modern Tello) is a wool-disbursement record from the household administration of Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of the city-state of Lagash around 2400 BCE. It logs sheep's-wool rations handed out to specific categories of laborers — boat-haulers and men who irrigate the barley fields — under the supervision of an official named (Nimgireš)'atum. Baranamtara ran one of the best-documented administrative archives of the Early Dynastic period, and texts like this one show how the ruling household tracked and paid its workforce in wool, a standard form of ancient wages.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a payroll slip in wool. A quantity of sheep's back-wool (the amount is broken away) was issued to an official named [Nimgireš]'atum, the accountant in charge. Three men who haul boats received one portion of wool each. Another group — the men who irrigate the barley fields — also got their share. Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash, is recorded as the one who authorized and made the distribution; a note at the end marks this as the second such payment.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[x wool, sheep's back-wool] — [for Nimgireš]'atum, the administrator ("man of accounts"); 3 men, boat-haulers, carrying — sheep's back-wool, 1 (unit) each, [they received]. (These are) the men who are barley-irrigators (water-bringers for the grain). Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash — she gave (it) to them; 2nd (delivery/occasion).
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
[x siki bar-udu] [nimgir-esz3-a]-tum2 lu2#-nig2-ag2 3(asz@c) lu2# ma#-sa2 il2#-la bar# udu 1(disz@t)-ta [szu ba-ti] lu2 sze a DU-a-me bara2-nam-tar-ra dam lugal-an-da ensi2 lagasz#-ka-ke4 e-ne#-ba 2(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — FAOS 15/2, 125. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: J. Pierpont Morgan Library Collection, Yale Babylonian Collection, New Haven, Connecticut, USA (P227560) — 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.