Position in chronology
HSS 03, 44
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic economic tablet from Girsu (ancient Tello), recording a delivery of fish and a pig hide by temple fishermen attached to the goddess Baba (Bau), patron deity of Lagash. Such tablets were routine bookkeeping — tracking modest quantities of food and raw materials moving from producers (here, fishermen working a reed marsh) into an institutional storehouse, under the authority of a named overseer. The object itself is a small pillow- or bun-shaped clay tablet, a common ED administrative format, photographed here from all six sides (obverse, reverse, top, bottom, left and right edges) to show the full inscribed surface and a modern museum accession label ('1904.7.13').
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Seven split (dried or gutted) fish and one pig hide taken from the reed marsh were delivered by the fishermen who work for the goddess Baba. The goods went into the E2-UR2 storehouse, under the supervision of the overseer E-da-ku. A final notation reading '6' closes the entry — likely a tally, count, or date mark tied to this delivery.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine7 split fish, 1 pig hide of the reed marsh (gešgi): delivery of the fishermen of Baba; (to) the E2-UR2 (storehouse/foundation-house); overseer: E-da-ku(x). 6.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
7(asz@c) ku6 dar-ra 1(asz@c) kusz szah2 gesz-gi-ka szu-ku6 ba-ba6-ke4-ne mu-DU e2-ur2 ugula e-da-kux(DU) 6(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — HSS 03, 44. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (P221353) — 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.