Position in chronology
HSS 03, 48
About this tablet
A brewery record from the Sumerian city-state of Girsu (modern Tello, southern Iraq), written around 2400–2350 BCE in the Early Dynastic period. It accounts for five vessels of high-quality beer — itemizing the emmer flour, malt, and beer-bread that went into them — brewed by a man named Amar-giri for the 'Barley-Eating' festival of the goddess Nanshe and delivered to the palace, where it was consumed. Beer was a staple of Mesopotamian festival life, and tablets like this show how carefully the state tracked its ingredients, its brewers, and its destination.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Five large jars of premium beer, brewed for the goddess Nanshe's Barley-Eating festival. The ingredient tally: 3 ban of emmer flour, 5 ban of malt, and 3 ban of beer-bread went into the batch. It was pressed as the regular festival delivery together with the votive contribution, carried over to the palace, and drunk there. Brewer responsible: Amar-giri. Filed in the fifth year.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 5 gurgur-vessels of fine (golden) beer — 2. its emmer(-flour): 3 ban; 3. its malt: 5 ban; 4. its beer-bread (bappir): 3 ban. 5. At the festival 'Barley-Eating' 6. of Nanshe, 7. as regular offerings (and) votive contribution it was brewed (pressed); 8. to the palace 9. it was brought (and) 10. consumed. 11. Amar-giri, 12. the brewer. 5th (year).
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
5(asz@c) gur4-gur4 kas sig15 imgaga3-bi 3(ban2@c) munu4-bi 5(ban2@c) bappir3-bi 3(ban2@c) ezem-sze-gu7 nansze-ka sa2-du11 ru-a ba-sur e2-gal-la ba-de6 gu7-a amar#-giri16 lu2 lungax(|BIxNIG2|) 5(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — HSS 03, 48. 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 (P221357) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-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.