Position in chronology
Nik 1, 114
About this tablet
This is a small clay account tablet from Girsu (modern Tello) in southern Iraq, dating to the Early Dynastic period (roughly the mid-third millennium BCE), part of the large archive of administrative records from that city's temple economy. It records outstanding barley loans owed by two named officials — a minister (sukkal) and an overseer (ugula) — along with the barley-equivalent silver interest that has been paid on each, then totals the grain and closes with a third name and a small number. Texts like this are the everyday bookkeeping of an early Mesopotamian institution: tracking who owed grain, how interest was settled, and keeping a running tally — evidence of surprisingly sophisticated credit and accounting practices already in place nearly 4,500 years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The record lists two outstanding barley debts. Gu-sikisal, a minister, owes 2 gur 2 barig of barley (measured by the standard gur), and 1 gur of barley-equivalent silver was paid as interest on it. Lugal-surx-ra-sa6, an overseer, owes 1 gur 2 barig 4 ban2 of barley, with 1 barig paid as interest. Adding the two barley amounts together gives a total of 5 gur 1 barig 4 ban2. The tablet closes with the name Inim-Enlila-andab and the figure 2, likely marking a further entry or a scribal/administrative reference tied to this account.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 gur 2 barig barley, gur-saggal (standard) measure — standing/outstanding barley. 1 gur barley-silver, its interest, was paid out (i3-su3) — (for) Gu-sikisal, the sukkal (minister/envoy). 1 gur 2 barig 4 ban2 barley — standing/outstanding barley. 1 barig barley-silver, its interest, was paid out — (for) Lugal-surx-ra-sa6, the ugula (overseer). Total: 5 gur 1 barig 4 ban2 barley, gur-saggal measure. Inim-Enlila-andab, 2 (units).
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(asz@c) 2(barig@c) sze gur saggal sze gub-ba 1(asz@c) sze ku3 masz-ba i3-su3 gu4-si-kisal sukkal 1(asz@c) 2(barig@c) 4(ban2@c) sze gub-ba 1(barig@c) sze ku3 masz-ba i3-su3 lugal-surx(ERIM)-ra-sa6 ugula szu-nigin2 5(asz@c) 1(barig@c) 4(ban2@c) sze gur saggal inim-en-lil2-la2-an-dab5 2(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 114. 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 (P221883) — 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.