Position in chronology
Nik 1, 055
About this tablet
This small cushion-shaped tablet from Girsu (ancient Tello), dated to the Early Dynastic period, is a short administrative note recording two separate quantities of barley rations — one linked to the temple estate of the goddess Baba, patron deity of Lagash/Girsu, and one linked to an estate or official called Šulšagana. The mention of a 'gate-house of Baba' that had been built suggests the barley was measured or issued from a specific newly-constructed building on the temple grounds. Such tablets are the everyday bookkeeping of a large temple household, tracking grain rations by the standard 'large gur' capacity measure, and the closing notation of a number ('6') likely marks this as one entry in a numbered series of periodic disbursements.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a barley-ration account. It records 125 large-gur measures minus 1 ban2 of barley rations, drawn from the barley of Šulšagana. A second amount, 141 large-gur minus 1 ban2 of barley rations, is recorded for the estate of Baba and the estate of Šulšagana, issued from the gate-house of Baba after it had been built. The note closes by marking this as disbursement number six in a series.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine125 gur saggal minus 1 ban2 — barley rations, barley of Šulšagana. 141 minus 1 ban2 — barley rations, (of) the house of Baba, (of) the house of Šulšagana, from the gate-house of Baba, (which) was built — its allotment: 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
2(gesz2@c) 1(u@c) 5(asz@c) la2 1(ban2@c) sze-ba gur saggal sze szul-sza3-ga-na-ka 2(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) 1(asz@c) la2 1(ban2@c) sze-ba e2 ba-ba6-ka e2 szul-sza3-ga-na-ka a-bul5-la ba-ba6-ka du3-a-ta e-ne-ba 6(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 055. 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 (P221824) — 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.