Position in chronology
Nik 1, 133
About this tablet
This is a small cushion-shaped administrative tablet from Girsu, part of the Nikolski (Nik 1) archive of the Early Dynastic III Lagash state economy. It records rations — flour and a substantial quantity of barley measured in the large gur-saggal unit — issued from the palace storehouse to soldiers or guardsmen (aga-us2) and to people described as being 'in transit,' with a cook and an overseeing official (maszkim) named as responsible parties. Tablets like this one are the everyday bookkeeping of a large temple-palace household, tracking exactly who ate what, when, and under whose authority — the bureaucratic backbone that let a Sumerian city-state feed its dependents and soldiers.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The palace issued a quantity of coarse barley flour to a unit of guardsmen, who ate it along with an ox, apparently at the palace itself. Separately, from the (palace) household, the cook is named, and an official called a maszkim is recorded as the overseer responsible for this disbursement. Five gur-saggal (the large standard measure, roughly 144 sila each) of barley were also issued — the next lines recording further detail are lost. Finally, more barley went out from the palace to people described as travelers or those 'in transit,' who then consumed it. In short: a palace ration account, tracking flour and barley given to soldiers and travelers, with a cook and a supervising official named as accountable for the transaction.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[x (measure)] of dabin-flour, for the aga-us2 troops (guardsmen), in the palace, with the ox, they consumed (it). From the house, the cook — its maszkim (overseer) (was so-and-so) — 5(asz@c) gur-saggal of barley, [...] from the palace, for those who are erx-ing (going/coming, i.e. in transit), they consumed (it).
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
[x] dabin aga3-us2-ne e2-gal-la gu4-da e-da-gu7 e-ta muhaldim maszkim-bi 5(asz@c) sze gur saggal [...] e2-gal-ta erx(|DU.DU|)-ra-ne i3-gu7
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 133. 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 (P221902) — 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.