Position in chronology
HSS 03, 50
About this tablet
This small pillow-shaped clay tablet is a grain-disbursement record from Girsu (modern Tello) in southern Iraq, dating to the Early Dynastic period, roughly the 24th century BCE — among the very earliest bureaucratic writing in human history. It records that a quantity of seed-grain was issued to a plowman named Inimanizi for sowing a field, under the authority of Enigal, a well-documented official ('manager,' nubanda) who administered the estate of the ruling family of Lagash. Texts like this one, part of a large archive of similar tablets, show the tightly managed agricultural economy of a Sumerian city-state temple household.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a receipt for seed-grain: 12 gur and 2 barig of grain (by the standard measure) was issued to Inimanizi, the head plowman, who took it out to sow the field called 'Saga-tur.' The transaction happened in the month named for sheep-shearing. Enigal, the estate manager, released the grain from the storehouse and recorded that he had allotted it to Inimanizi. A tally mark of 6 closes the entry, likely an internal accounting note.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine12 gur 2 barig of seed-grain (measured in) gur-saggal (the standard 'big gur' measure): Inimanizi, the chief plowman (sag-apin) — to the field 'Saga-tur' ("Good-Little(-Field)") he carried (it). Month: 'ga2-udu-ur4' ("shearing of sheep"). Enigal, the manager (nubanda), from the e2-ki-sal4-la (storehouse/threshing-floor building) set it out for him. 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(u@c) 2(asz@c) 2(barig@c) sze-numun gur saggal inim-ma-ni-zi sag-apin-ke4 GAN2 sa6-ga-tur-sze3 ba-de6 iti ga2-udu-ur4-ka en-ig-gal nu-banda3 e2-ki-sal4-la-ta e-na-ta-gar 6(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — HSS 03, 50. 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 (P221359) — 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.