Position in chronology
Nik 1, 226
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic administrative tablet from Girsu (Tello) recording deliveries of animal hides — sheep and ewe skins — issued to or received from named individuals, dated by a local calendar month. Texts like this belonged to the vast institutional archives of the temple/palace household economy of Lagash, where scribes tracked raw materials such as hides for later use in leatherworking. The closing formula naming an overseer (nu-banda3) and a phrase meaning something like 'returned into hand' suggests this is a settled account — hides handed over and the transaction closed out. Its interest lies less in drama than in texture: it is one tiny thread in the immense bureaucratic fabric that ran Sumerian city-states nearly 4,500 years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a short receipt for animal skins. It records four ewe hides and two ram hides credited to a man named Ur-gešₓ, and separately five ewe hides and four male-sheep hides credited to a man named Lugal-anda. The entry is dated to the month called 'when the nanny-goats bleat,' and ties the transaction to the household of a man named Lu-inimdu. The goods were then handed over to Ur-igiama, an overseer, and the account was closed out — the goods 'returned' or settled into his hands. It's a routine bookkeeping note for tracking leather-hide stock in a temple or palace storehouse.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine4 hides of ewe, 2 hides of male sheep (ram): Ur-gešₓ. 5 hides of ewe, 4 hides of male (sheep): Lugal-anda. Month: "ud5-de3-gu3-ra-a-a" ("the nanny-goats bleat"), house of Lu-inimdu(a). To Ur-igiama, the overseer (nu-banda3): returned/repaid (šu-a bi2-gi4).
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
4(asz@c) kusz u8 2(asz@c) kusz udu-nita ur-gesz 5(asz@c) kusz u8 4(asz@c) kusz nita lugal-an-da iti ud5-de3-gu3-ra-a-a e2 lu2 inim-du11 ur-igi-ama-sze3 nu-banda3 szu-a be2-gi4
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 226. 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 (P221995) — 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.