Position in chronology
Nik 1, 036
About this tablet
This is a small, compact clay tablet from Girsu (ancient Tello) in southern Iraq, dating to the Early Dynastic period, roughly the mid-third millennium BCE — one of thousands of economic records kept by the temple household of the goddess Bau at Lagash. It documents a field leased out to tenant farmers under the 'plow-lease' (apin-la2) system: the exact area of the plot, the amount of barley it yielded, and the names of the herdsman, farmer, and officials responsible for measuring it. Texts like this one let historians reconstruct how early Sumerian institutions managed land, labor, and grain long before markets or coined money existed.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This record covers a barley field of a bit over one and a half bur (roughly 10 hectares by later reckoning) that had been leased out to tenant farmers rather than worked directly by temple staff. The harvest from it came to 131 gur, 2 barig, and 4 ban2 of barley, measured out at the standard, official rate. The herdsman Ur-du6 is named in connection with the field, which belonged to Lugal-ra-mu-gi4 and had been assigned from the holding of Nam-engar. Two farmers, Inim-Enlila-andab and Lu-Baba, are recorded as the ones who measured out the plot, with a final number '4' apparently marking this as one entry in a numbered series of such records.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 bur3, 1 eše3, 2 1/4 iku, 8 sar (and) one-third of 10 (sar) — the field's (area): a barley-growing field, under plow-lease (tenancy). Its barley: 131 gur 2 barig 4 ban2, by the saggal (standard) measure, at the regular (si-sa2) rate. Ur-du6, the chief herdsman (šusz3). Field of Lugal-ra-mu-gi4, from (the holding of) Nam-engar. Inim-Enlila-andab, (and) Lu-Baba, the farmers, measured (it). 4 (entry/occasion marker).
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(bur3@c) 1(esze3@c) 2(iku@c) 1/4(iku@c) 8(disz@t) sar igi 3(disz@t)-gal2 1(u) i3-tuku GAN2 sze mu2-a apin-la2 sze-bi 2(gesz2@c) 1(u@c) 1(asz@c) 2(barig@c) 4(ban2@c) gur saggal si-sa2-ta ur-du6 szusz3 GAN2 lugal-ra-mu-gi4 ki nam-engar inim-en-lil2-la2-an-dab5 lu2-ba-ba6 engar-re# mu-gid2 4(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 036. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (P221743) — 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.