Position in chronology
Nik 1, 210
About this tablet
This small clay tablet is a livestock-management record from the household administration of Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, the ruler (ensi2) of the city-state of Lagash around 2400 BCE. It tallies eighteen large plow-oxen that had been broken in and put under the charge of a man named Ur-Enki, described as the chief plowman, following a formal inspection of the animals. Tablets like this one, from Girsu (modern Tello), belong to a famous and enormous archive documenting the day-to-day running of the queen's estate — one of the richest bodies of economic texts to survive from the third millennium BCE.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Eighteen large oxen — trained, broken-in draft animals — are recorded here. Ur-Enki, the chief plowman, is responsible for them. After they were counted and inspected, and confirmed present and accounted for, they were yoked for work. These are oxen belonging to the household herd of Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, governor of Lagash. The entry closes with a note marking this as part of a broader summary tablet, not to be copied out or booked separately elsewhere.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine18 large oxen — broken-in/trained oxen. Ur-Enki is the chief plowman (sag-apin). After the inspection, (oxen) verified as accounted for ("having heads") were yoked. Oxen of the (private) herd — (of) Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, governor of Lagash. 1 (unit/entry) — Broad tablet: not to be extracted (elsewhere).
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(u@c) la2 2(asz@c) gu4 gal-gal gu4 dun-a ur-en-ki sag-apin-ka-kam egir4 gurum2-ma-ta sag-ga2-tuku-a ba-dun gu4 u2-rum bara2-nam-tar-ra dam lugal-an-da ensi2 lagasz-ka 1(|ASZxDISZ@t|) dub dagal nu-ta-zi
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 210. 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 (P221979) — 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.