Position in chronology
Nik 1, 221
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic administrative tablet from Girsu, part of the vast archive of the Bau/Baba temple household published in the Nikolski (Nik 1) series. It is a terse memorandum tracking a handful of animal hides — two sheep hides and one kid-goat hide — moving through the hands of a temple cook and an overseer, destined for a 'new house' under construction, and ultimately received by a man named Šulbi for use at an irrigated field. Texts like this, though tiny, are the raw data from which historians reconstruct the labor, materials, and personnel of a major third-millennium BCE temple economy.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Record of two sheep hides and one goat-kid hide, issued from (the stores of) E-, passing through the cook and the overseer, earmarked for the new building. The hides were handed back over, to be set aside at the field district. A man named Šulbi took delivery. Total: 7 (units, in the tablet's own counting notation).
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 sheep hides, 1 kid-goat hide — from E(-ta), (via) the cook (and) the overseer, (for) the new house. He returned (it) into his/its hand. To be placed/set at the irrigated field — Šulbi received (it). Total: 7.
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
2(asz@c) kusz udu 1(asz@c) kusz masz e-ta muhaldim nu-banda3 e2 gibil szu-[na] i3-ni-gi4 a-gar-ka ga2-ga2-de3 SZUL-bi2 szu ba-ti 7(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 221. 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 (P221990) — 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.