Position in chronology
Genava 26, 5
About this tablet
This small cushion-shaped tablet from Girsu (ancient Tello) is a routine account of oil and cheese rations issued to the shepherds who tended the temple's nanny-goats, dating to the Early Dynastic IIIb period when Lugalanda ruled the city-state of Lagash. It names several officials and personnel — A-inun, Ur-Ebabbar, and the overseer Ur-igi-ama — who received or handled these goods, with a final tally of six units delivered by the manager. Such texts are part of the huge administrative archive from Girsu's temple household, which recorded even small quantities of oil and dairy products moving through the institution's storerooms.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a storeroom receipt. It records one jar of fine oil set aside as a special (maš-da-re-a) offering for the men who herd the temple's nanny-goats. It then lists a jar plus three sila of oil specifically designated for the goats, along with a barig and a ban2 of cheese or curd, credited to a person named A-inun. Ten more sila of oil went to someone called Ur-Ebabbar, again described as oil for the nanny-goats and again for their shepherds — all of this under the authority of Lugalanda. The text breaks off here. When it resumes, it's in the 'house of the festival,' where the overseer Ur-igi-ama is recorded as having disbursed a total of six units.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 jar of fine oil, oil (as) maš-da-re-a offering, for the shepherds of the nanny-goats. 1 jar (and) 3 sila3 of nanny-goat oil, 1 barig 1 ban2 of ga'ar-cheese (curd), (for) A-inun. 10 sila3 oil, (for) Ur-Ebabbar, nanny-goat oil, for the shepherds of the nanny-goats, (under) Lugal-anda. [...] (break) In the house of the festival (e2-ezem-da), to Ur-igi-ama, the manager (nu-banda3), he delivered/poured out: 6.
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(asz@c) dug i3 nun i3 masz-da-re-a sipa ud5-ke4-ne 1(asz@c) dug 3(disz@t) sila3 i3 ud5 1(barig@c) 1(ban2@c) ga'ar a-i3-nun 1(u@c) sila3 i3 ur-e2-babbar2# i3 ud5 sipa ud5-ke4-ne lugal-an-da [...] e2 ezem#-da-ka ur-igi-ama-sze3 nu-banda3 e-na-de2 6(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Genava 26, 5. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva, Switzerland (P225846) — 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.