Position in chronology
Nik 1, 071
About this tablet
This is a small clay administrative tablet from Girsu (ancient Lagash), dated to the Early Dynastic IIIb period, roughly the 24th century BCE — part of the large archive of household and temple accounts published as the 'Nikolski I' collection. It records disbursements of emmer-wheat and barley, some of it earmarked as fodder and drinking-water rations for sheep sacred to the god Ningirsu, handled through the local market-house and overseen by named officials. Tablets like this one are the bureaucratic bedrock of one of the world's first cities: mundane grain bookkeeping that lets historians reconstruct how temple estates fed animals, paid workers, and moved goods nearly 4,500 years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Ten gur of white emmer-wheat and just over five gur of barley from the new harvest were brought in from the field, hauled by sledge, and handed over as an exchange disbursement — receipt confirmed. Separately, two gur of white emmer-wheat, with one barig of it set aside as an exchange portion, went out as barley and water rations for the sheep of the god Ningirsu — again, receipt confirmed. The official Ursag and the overseer Šubur arranged for this to be issued from the market-house. A note at the end records the figure 5, likely a tally or reference mark for the transaction.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine10 gur (main-standard measure) white emmer-wheat, 5 gur 1 barig 1 ban2 barley — of the new harvest/threshing — barley brought from the field, hauled (by sledge): it was disbursed (in exchange); received. 2 gur white emmer-wheat, its exchange-emmer: 1 barig — for the sheep, barley (and) water of Ningir[su], was carried; received. Ursag, the gal-UN (official), (and) Šubur, the overseer (nu-banda3) — from the market-house (e2-ganba) he set (this) out for him. 5.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
1(u@c) ziz2 babbar2 gur saggal 5(asz@c) 1(barig@c) 1(ban2@c) sze gesz gibil sze GAN2-ta de6-a ur3-ra e-bala-a szu ba-ti 2(asz@c) ziz2 babbar2 ziz2 bala-bi 1(barig@c) udu-sze3 sze a nin-gir2-[su]-ka i3-il2-la-a szu ba-ti ur-sag gal-UN-ra szubur nu-banda3 e2-ganba-ka-ta e-na-ta-gar 5(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 071. 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 (P221840) — 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.