Position in chronology
Nik 1, 229
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic administrative tablet from Girsu, part of the vast archive of the Bau/Baba temple household that recorded the movement of goods and labor. It logs a delivery of sheep hides — 23 from large sheep and 3 from rams — earmarked for use in the irrigated field, likely as leather water-skins or containers for agricultural work, received by a man named Šulbi during the month named for the 'wool distribution' festival. Such texts, thousands of which survive from Girsu around 2400 BCE, are the raw bookkeeping of one of the world's earliest bureaucracies.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records that 26 sheep hides — 23 from full-grown sheep and 3 from rams — were handed over for use out in the field, during the month known for the wool distribution. A man named Šulbi took delivery of them. A final number, '6,' closes out the account, though its exact purpose (perhaps a tally or sealing notation) isn't fully clear.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine23 hides of large sheep, 3 hides of male sheep, to be placed in the (irrigated) field — month: “wool-distribution”; Šulbi received (them). 6 (numeral notation).
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) 3(asz@c) kusz udu gal-gal 3(asz@c) kusz udu-nita a-gar-ka ga2-ga2-de3 iti siki-ba-a SZUL-bi2 szu ba-ti 6(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 229. 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 (P221998) — 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.