Position in chronology
Nik 1, 228
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic administrative tablet from Girsu (modern Tello), recording a disbursement of animal hides — ten sheep hides and three goat-kid hides — issued in the month of sheep-shearing. It names a leatherworker, Ur-Nin-pirig, as the intended recipient of the raw material, and an overseer, Ur-igi-ama, who authorized or carried out the transfer. Such texts are the everyday bookkeeping of a large temple or palace household in third-millennium BCE southern Mesopotamia, tracking raw materials (here, hides) moving from herding operations to craft workshops.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This record notes that ten sheep hides and three young goat hides were handed over during the month called 'sheep-shearing.' The hides went to Ur-Nin-pirig, a leatherworker, and the transfer was made by Ur-igi-ama, an overseer, who gave them to him. A small notation, '3,' closes out the entry, likely a tally or sealing mark.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine10 hides of sheep, 3 hides of goat-kids, month: "Shearing of the (sheep-)fold" (iti ga₂-udu-ur₄-ka), Ur-Nin-pirig, the leatherworker — to Ur-igi-ama, the overseer, he gave (them). 3.
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(u@c) kusz udu 3(asz@c) kusz masz iti ga2-<udu>-ur4-ka ur-nin-pirig aszgab-ra ur-igi-ama-sze3 nu-banda3 e-na-szum2 3(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 228. 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 (P221997) — 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.