Position in chronology
Nik 1, 096
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic administrative tablet from Girsu, part of the Lagash palace/temple grain-accounting archive. It records a large quantity of barley — over 300 gur — grown or stored on a field called Duab'u, handled by an overseer named Ur-šerda and formally 'returned into hand' (repaid or reconciled) under the authority of a manager named Šubur. Tablets like this one were the everyday bookkeeping of a large agrarian institution, tracking who owed grain, who delivered it, and who signed off on the transaction — the accounting infrastructure behind one of the world's first bureaucracies.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A grain account: 303 gur and 2 barig of barley, measured by the standard ('big-head') gur, from the field known as Duab'u. Ur-šerda, the overseer, is recorded as having returned this barley — that is, repaid or settled the account. Šubur, the manager, oversaw the transaction, which is closed out with a final notation reading 'e-bala: 1,' likely a tally or transfer count marking this as one completed exchange or delivery record.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5(geš₂@c) 3(aš@c) 2(barig@c) barley, gur-saĝŋal (the 'big-head'/standard gur measure) barley of the field Duab'u ("mound of Abu") Ur-šerda, the overseer (ugula) — returned into hand (repaid). Šubur, the manager (nubanda), e-bala: 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
5(gesz2@c) 3(asz@c) 2(barig@c) sze gur saggal sze GAN2 du6 ab-u2-ka ur-szer7-da ugula szu-a bi2-gi4 szubur nu-banda3 e-bala 1(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 096. 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 (P221865) — 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.