Position in chronology
Nik 1, 242
About this tablet
This is a small clay account tablet from Girsu (modern Tello), dating to the Early Dynastic period, roughly 2400 BCE. It records a tally of tanned leather hides — some old, some new, and one of a special type — that were checked in ('returned to hand') and then handed over or exchanged with a named individual. Texts like this belonged to the archives of the Lagash state economy, where scribes tracked raw materials such as leather passing between workshops and officials; this particular example belongs to the well-known Nikolski (Nik 1) tablet series from the Hermitage collection.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Nine old leather hides, seven new leather hides, and one new hide of a special type were counted and accounted for — checked back in, so to speak. The batch was then handed over to (or exchanged with) a man named Šulbi'inumda. A final number, likely a total or tally mark, closes the entry but is too worn to read clearly.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine9 (lit. 10 less 1) hides, du8 (processed/tanned), old; 7 hides, du8, new; 1 hide, šag3-du3(-type), new. The hides were returned/accounted for (szu-a gi4-a-am6). With Šulbi'inumda — he transferred/exchanged (them) (e-da-bala). 1(N14?) — [numeral/total notation, broken].
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
1(u@c) la2 1(asz@c) kusz du8 sumun 7(asz@c) kusz du8 gibil 1(asz@c) kusz sza3-du3 gibil kusz szu-a gi4-a-am6 SZUL-bi2-nu-um-da e#-da-bala# 1(|ASZxDISZ@t|)#?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 242. 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 (P222011) — 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.