Position in chronology
Nik 1, 138
About this tablet
This is a small clay administrative tablet from Girsu (modern Tello), part of the Early Dynastic bureaucratic archive published in the Nikolski (Nik) collection and now held in the Hermitage Museum. It records a transaction involving salt measured in the standard 'large gur' capacity unit, along with other goods and a named individual (Lugal-...-na), tracking receipt, return, and deposit of items. Tablets like this one are the everyday paperwork of a large temple or palace household economy in third-millennium BCE southern Mesopotamia — mundane in content but invaluable for reconstructing how goods moved through early institutions.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The record opens with an account of salt: one large gur-measure and four ban2, weighed out or measured in the standard 'gur-saggal' unit. The next lines list other goods and quantities, but the tablet is too damaged to read them — only scattered fragments survive, including what may be a reference tied to beer. A man named Lugal-...-na is named, likely as the person the goods concern, though the surrounding lines are broken. The surviving end of the text states that something was received, that it was returned, and that a quantity of four was left or deposited at a given place. Much of the tablet's detail — quantities, other goods, and the full names and roles of those involved — is lost to breaks and erosion.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 gur-saggal (and) 4 ban2 — salt, by gu2-weight, (in) gur-saggal (measure). Goods/property of [...] 1 [...] [...] [...] [...] from/with beer [...] Lugal-[...]-na [...] [...] [...] place (ki) [...] it was received/delivered (i3-kux/DU). It was returned (e-ma-gi4). It was left/deposited at the place (ki-a mu-da-tak4): 4.
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(asz@c) 4(ban2@c) gu2 mun gur saggal nig2-[...] 1(asz@c) [...] [...] [...] [...] kas-ta [x] lugal-[x-x]-na x [x x] [x] ki [x] i3-kux(DU) e-ma-gi4 ki-a mu-da-tak4 4(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 138. 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 (P221907) — 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.