Position in chronology
Nik 1, 218
About this tablet
This small clay tablet from Girsu (ancient Tello), part of the Early Dynastic Lagash state archive, records two linked administrative acts: the delivery of an animal to the city-ruler (ensi2) by a man named Utu-lu-saga, son of Ga'eš, and — in the same entry, dated to the month of Ningirsu's malt-eating festival — the ruler's act of giving a woman named Geme-Tarsirsira, daughter of Enaba, in marriage to a cowherd. It is a striking glimpse of how, in third-millennium BCE Sumer, even a woman's marriage could pass through the ruler's household administration and be recorded exactly like a delivery of goods or livestock, dated by the temple festival calendar rather than a regnal year.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One female animal — a young, thin calf — was delivered to the city-ruler by Utu-lu-saga, son of Ga'eš. This happened in the month of the 'Malt-Eating Festival' of the god Ningirsu. In the same record, the ruler gave a woman named Geme-Tarsirsira, daughter of Enaba, in marriage to a man who worked as a cowherd; the transfer is noted with a final tally mark of '2.' The tablet reads like a single administrative entry pairing a goods delivery with a marriage arrangement handled through the ruler's office.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(aš) female ... (gir), a thin/young calf (amar sig) — Utu-lu-saga, son of Ga'eš, to the ensi2 (ruler) brought (delivered it). Month: "Festival of Malt-Eating" of Ningirsu. The ensi2 [gave] Geme-[Tarsir]sira, daughter of Enaba, into marriage, to the cowherd (unu3) she was given/brought. 2(|AŠxDIŠ@t|)
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) munus gir amar sig utu-lu2-sa6-ga dumu ga:esz8-ke4 ensi2-ra mu-na-de6 iti ezem-munu4-gu7 nin-gir2-su-ka-ka ensi2-[ke4] geme2-[tar-sir2]-sir2-[ra] dumu e-na-ba nam-dam unu3-de3 ba-de6 2(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 218. 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 (P221987) — 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.