Position in chronology
Nik 1, 069
About this tablet
This is a Sumerian administrative tablet from Girsu (ancient Lagash), dating to the Early Dynastic IIIb period, roughly the 24th century BCE. It records barley issued to four named plowmen for feeding their draft oxen, totaling 12 gur, along with a further barley allotment tied to a nearby field, all disbursed by the official Eniggal, overseer (nubanda), from the institution's market-house storehouse. Tablets of this type, part of the well-known Nikolski (Nik I) archive from the temple household administration of Lagash, are among the earliest surviving detailed records of institutional farm labor and grain accounting.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Four plowmen — Ur-enki, Saga-tuku'a, Ane-kura, and Inim-ani-zi — each drew 3 gur of barley (the large 'saggal' measure) as fodder for their plow-oxen, twelve gur in all. A further amount of barley was set aside for a batch described as 'finished tugx,' consumed in connection with the field bordering the Amma forest. Eniggal, the estate's manager, issued all of this from the market-house, the institution's central storehouse. The tablet closes with the number six, likely a date or filing reference, though its exact meaning is unclear.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 gur (saggal-standard) barley, oxen-fodder, consumed — Ur-enki. 3 gur — Saga-tuku'a. [3 gur] — Ane-kura. 3 gur — Inim-ani-zi. They are chief-plowmen. Total: 12 gur (saggal-standard) barley. Barley for the tugx(LAK483), finished/filled, consumed, for the field bordering the tir-amma forest (the poplar/Amma-forest edge). Eniggal, the manager (nubanda), from the market-house (e2-ganba) he disbursed it. 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
3(asz@c) sze gu4-re6 gu7 gur saggal ur-en-ki 3(asz@c) sag-ga2-tuku-a [3(asz@c) a2]-ne2-kur-ra 3(asz@c) inim-ma-ni-zi sag-apin-me szu-nigin2 1(u@c) 2(asz@c) sze gur saggal sze tugx(LAK483) si-ga gu7 GAN2 da tir am-ma-ka-sze3 en-ig-gal nu-banda3 e2-ganba-ka-ta e-ne-ta-gar 6(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 069. 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 (P221838) — 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.