Position in chronology
LB 0007
About this tablet
This is a small administrative tablet from Girsu (ancient Tello), part of the archive of Presargonic Lagash under its last independent ruler, Urukagina (also read Uru-inimgina), around 2350 BCE. It records disbursements of measured quantities of cow's-milk cheese/curd (ga'ar) and emmer wheat to named cowherds, overseen by an official called Ur-igi-ama-she and issued under the authority of the king himself. Texts like this — routine bookkeeping of rations for herding personnel — are what let historians reconstruct the everyday economic administration of one of the earliest documented territorial states.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a ration voucher. It records: 1 barig 2 ban2 of cow's cheese and some amount of emmer wheat (the line is damaged) — then a gap in the text — followed by another entry for cheese and emmer, again partly broken, credited to a man named Ur-Ninmar. Next comes 2 barig 3 ban2 of cow's cheese for Ur-Eshirnun; both men are identified as cowherds. The overseer Ur-igi-ama-she measured out these allotments, acting under the authority of Urukagina, king of Lagash. The tablet ends with a numeral notation ('Lagash: 5...') whose exact accounting function is unclear.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 barig 2 ban2: cow's cheese/curd. [x] ... emmer wheat. (break) [x ... cow's cheese/curd] (restored) [x] ... emmer wheat. Ur-Ninmar. 2 barig 3 ban2: cow's cheese/curd. Ur-Eshirnun — they are cowherds. Ur-igi-ama-she, the overseer, measured (it) out. Urukagina, king of Lagash. 5 (units, notation |ASZxDISZ@t|).
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(barig@c) 2(ban2@c) ga'ar ab2 [x] x ziz2 [...] [x ga'ar ab2] [x] x ziz2 ur-nin-mar 2(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) ga'ar ab2 ur#-esz3-ir#-nun unu3-me ur-igi-ama-sze3 nu-banda3 e-ag2 URU-KA-gi-na lugal lagasz 5(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — LB 0007. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: de Liagre Böhl Collection, Netherlands Institute for the Near East, Leiden, Holland (P247604) — 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.