Position in chronology
Nik 1, 246
About this tablet
This is a small pre-Sargonic administrative tablet from Girsu (modern Tello), part of the large Baba-temple archive of the ruler Uru-KA-gina (also read Urukagina), who governed the city-state of Lagash around 2350 BCE. It records animal hides — from she-asses and a donkey — received, stored, or returned through the temple storehouse and grain-pile of the goddess Baba, under the supervision of the overseer Enigal, a well-known administrator frequently named in this archive. Tablets like this one are the everyday bookkeeping of a temple household economy: tracking livestock products in and out of storage, dated by the ruler's regnal year.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Two hides from she-donkeys — one a two-year-old, one a breeding female — are recorded as handled by the men Enku and Ur-Namnun, shepherds working under the donkey-herd supervisor. The overseer Enigal oversaw the transaction: the hides went into the storehouse of the goddess Baba, added to the grain-pile that had already been heaped up there, and the account was settled ('returned into hand'). A further donkey hide of a particular type is also noted as belonging to Baba's stores. The record is dated to year 1 of Uru-KA-gina, ruler of Lagash.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 hide of a she-ass (eme3), [Šul-gi(?) type/marking], 2 years old — Enku (recipient). 1 hide of a mother she-ass (munus-ama), [Šul-gi(?) type/marking] — Ur-Namnun. Shepherds under the šagan-official(s). Enigal, the overseer: in the storehouse of Baba, into the grain-pile that had been heaped up, it was returned/restored into hand. Hide of a donkey, u₂-rum(-type) — (for/of) Baba. Uru-KA-gina, ruler of Lagash. Year 1.
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(asz@c) kusz eme3 |SZUL.GI| mu 2(disz@t) en-ku4 1(asz@c) kusz munus-ama |SZUL.GI| ur-nam2-nun sipa szaganx(AMA)-me en-ig-gal nu-banda3 ganun ba-ba6-ka guru7 i3-dub-ba-a szu-a bi2-gi4 kusz ansze u2-rum ba-ba6 URU-KA-gi-na ensi2 lagasz 1(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 246. 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 (P222015) — 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.