Position in chronology
Nik 1, 172
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic III administrative tablet from the palace archive at Girsu (ancient Tello), recording the disbursement of livestock as part of the mašdaria-offering system — a periodic tribute of animals owed to the ruling household. The tablet names Bara-namtara, wife of Lugalanda (ensi of Lagash), one of the best-documented women in early Mesopotamian administration, whose household ('the women's house') managed its own flocks, offerings, and personnel. A man named Enku, holding the title 'fattener' (the official who raised livestock for slaughter or offering), is recorded taking delivery of the animal. Hundreds of tablets like this one survive from Bara-namtara's archive, giving historians an unusually detailed picture of an elite Sumerian woman's economic household nearly 4,500 years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One shorn male lamb was set aside as a mašdaria-offering and portioned out for the household of the wife of the overseer Enigal — that is, for Bara-namtara. This happened in the month of the 'Festival of malt-eating.' A man named Lugal-urukaka delivered it into the women's household, on her account. Enku, the livestock-fattener, then took charge of it — 2 units recorded.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 shorn male lamb — mašdaria-offering, portioned out (hal-hal), (for) the wife of Enigal, the overseer: Bara-[namtar]a. Month: "Festival of malt-eating." Lugal-urukaka — into the women's household it was delivered to her. Enku, the fattener, carried (it) off: 2.
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) sila4 nita ur4-ra masz-da-re-a hal-hal dam en-ig-gal nu-banda3 bara2#-[nam-tar]-ra# iti ezem-munu4-gu7 lugal-uru11-ka-ka e2-munus-a mu-na-kux(DU) en-ku3 kuruszda-e ba-de6 2(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 172. 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 (P221941) — 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.