Position in chronology
Nik 1, 077
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic economic tablet from Girsu (ancient Tello), part of the Nikolski (Nik 1) archive now in the Hermitage Museum. It records a barley transaction: a quantity purchased with silver, a portion connected to loan repayment, and a smaller amount delivered and issued as rations to a group described as 'junior' or dependent persons — likely young or subordinate workers attached to a temple or estate household. Tablets like this, though modest, are the raw bookkeeping of one of the world's earliest bureaucracies, tracking grain, credit, and labor around 2400 BCE.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Ten gur of barley, measured by the large standard (gur-saggal), were purchased using silver. Two gur, taken out as a loan, were paid back in full. A further one barig and four ban2 of barley were delivered. That grain was issued as rations and received by a group of junior or dependent workers. In short: a barley purchase, a settled loan, and a ration handout, all logged on one small tablet.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine10 gur, (measured in) gur-saggal, of barley — bought with silver. 2 gur(?), as a loan (ur5), fully repaid (šu-šu-še3-ga). 1 barig 4 ban2 barley — was delivered/carried (ba-de6). The dependents/junior persons (lu2 di4-di4-la) — for rations/consumption (nig2-gu7-de3) — received (it) (šu ba-ti).
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(u@c) sze gur saggal ku3-ga ba-sa10 2(asz@c) ur5 szu-szu se3-ga 1(barig@c) 4(ban2@c) sze ba-de6 [lu2] di4-di4-la nig2-gu7-de3 szu ba-ti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 077. 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 (P221846) — 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.