Position in chronology
Nik 1, 037
About this tablet
This is a field-survey tablet from Early Dynastic Girsu (Tello), part of the large corpus of administrative 'field texts' kept by the temple household of the goddess Baba. It records the acreage of several plots sown with barley, white emmer, and wheat, gives the measured width and length of one plot in reed-lengths and cubits, notes an unclaimed 'holy/ancient' field, and closes with the name of the responsible official, Šubur, the manager who oversaw the survey. Tablets like this — cushion-shaped, with numerals impressed as rows of circular marks — are among the earliest systematic land-accounting records in history, produced by scribes tracking the temple's agricultural estate roughly 2400 BCE.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a land survey report. It lists several fields by crop and size: one plot of just over 6 bur3 (a large area unit) growing barley, another of about 1 bur3 and change growing white emmer, a smaller plot of wheat, and a bit more barley of a particular kind, adding up to a total of roughly 8 bur3 sown with barley, wheat, and emmer combined. One plot belonging to a man named Alimu is measured out precisely — its width comes to about 20 gi-reeds plus a few cubits, its length about 35 gi-reeds — giving a field of 1 bur3, 1 eše3, and 2 iku bordering land called Da-UD-NE. Two more fields follow, one of barley just under 5 bur3 and one of white emmer at 1 bur3 2 eše3, plus a field tied to a 'holy' or ancient plot that currently has no assigned holder. The record is signed off by Šubur, the manager in charge, with a final surveying note.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine6 bur3 2 iku field: barley. 1 bur3 2 eše3 3 1/2 1/4 iku field: white emmer. 3 iku field, 20 sar field: wheat. 35 sar: NE-GI-bar barley. Total: 8 bur3 3 1/4 iku field — barley, wheat, (and) emmer. Field of Alimu: 1 (plot). 20 1/2 3 gi-reeds (and) 3 cubits: matching width (sag). 1(aš) 30 1/2 5 gi-reeds: matching length (us2). Its field: 1 bur3 1 eše3 2 iku, adjoining Da-UD-NE. 5 bur3 less 1/2 iku field: barley. 1 bur3 2 eše3 field: white emmer. Field of the ki-ul ('holy/ancient place'): without a holder. Šubur, the manager (nu-banda3). Surveyed (mu-gid2): 1.
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
6(bur3@c) 2(iku@c) GAN2 sze 1(bur3@c) 2(esze3@c) 3(iku@c) 1/2(iku@c) 1/4(iku@c) GAN2 ziz2 babbar2 3(iku@c) GAN2 2(u) sar GAN2 gig 3(u@c) 5(asz@c) sar sze NE-GI-bar szu-nigin2 8(bur3@c) 3(iku@c) 1/4(iku@c) GAN2 sze gig ziz2 GAN2 a-limmu2 DISZ 2(u) 1/2(disz) 3(disz@t) gi kusz3 3(disz@t) sag sa2 1(asz) 3(u) 1/2(disz) 5(disz@t) gi us2 sa2 GAN2-bi 1(bur3@c) 1(esze3@c) 2(iku@c) da-UD-NE 5(bur3@c) la2 1/2(iku@c) GAN2 sze 1(bur3@c) 2(esze3@c) GAN2 ziz2 babbar2 GAN2 ki UL nu-tuku szubur nu-banda3 mu-gid2 1(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 037. 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 (P221744) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.