Position in chronology
Nik 1, 122
About this tablet
This small clay tablet from Girsu (ancient Tello), dated to the Early Dynastic period (roughly 2500–2350 BCE), is a brief administrative memorandum tracking barley owed as interest (maš) on silver loans and the amounts still outstanding for two named individuals. Texts like this belong to the vast archive of institutional accounting from the Lagash-Girsu region — the everyday bookkeeping of a temple or estate household that tracked debts, rations, and repayments among its dependents. The tablet's compact, pillow-like shape and the accession number etched into it (Erm 14122) mark it as part of the State Hermitage Museum's collection, originally published in the Nikolski (Nik) series of Girsu economic texts.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a short ledger entry. Di-Utu paid off 1 gur 2 barig of barley as the silver-interest owed on a loan. Separately, an account shows 2 gur 2 barig of barley still outstanding, plus another 1 gur of barley paid as silver-interest, this time credited to Lugal-me, son of Nigdu-pa'e. The record closes with the name Inim-Enlila-andabe and the number 3, likely the clerk or witness who processed the entry, along with a tally mark whose exact purpose isn't fully clear.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 gur 2 barig barley, the silver interest, was paid — (for) Di-Utu. 2 gur 2 barig barley, standing (outstanding), 1 gur barley, the silver interest, was paid — (for) Lugal-me, son of Nigdu-pa'e. Inim-Enlila-andabe, 3.
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(asz@c) 2(barig@c) sze ku3 masz-ba i3-su3 di-utu 2(asz@c) 2(barig@c) sze gub-ba 1(asz@c) sze ku3 masz-ba i3-su3 lugal-me dumu nig2-du7-pa-e3 inim-en-lil2-la2-an-dab5 3(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 122. 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 (P221891) — 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.