Position in chronology
Nik 1, 250
About this tablet
This small clay tablet is a routine bookkeeping record from the city of Girsu (modern Tello), part of the great administrative archive of the state of Lagash under the ruler Lugalanda, around 2400 BCE. It tallies deliveries of animal hides — cow, ox, and goat — assigned to named individuals, then totaled and confirmed as 'returned into hand' after a formal inspection carried out by the institution's cowherds. Thousands of tablets like this one survive from Lagash, giving historians an extraordinarily detailed picture of how a Sumerian temple-state tracked its livestock byproducts and labor obligations.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is an inventory receipt: two cow hides went to 'the wife,' four cow hides went to a man named Mesagnudi, and two goat hides plus two ox hides went to a man named Uršugalama. Altogether that's ten cow hides, specifically ones from pastured (grass-fed) animals. The record is filed under the authority of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash, and notes that the herdsmen handed the hides back over after they were checked and counted during a formal inspection.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 hides, cow — for the wife (nam-dam). 4 hides, cow — Mesagnudi. 2 hides, goat (gir); 2 hides, ox — Uršugalama. Total: 10 hides, cow — pastured/grass-fed cow hides. Lugalanda, ruler (ensi2) of Lagash. The cowherds (unu3-de3-ne), at the mouth of the inspection (ka gurum2-ma-ka), have returned (them) into hand. 1 (notation mark).
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(asz@c) kusz ab2 nam-dam 4(asz@c) kusz ab2 me-sag3-nu-di 2(asz@c) kusz gir 2(asz@c) kusz gu4 ur-szu-ga-lam-ma szu-nigin2 1(u@c) kusz ab2 kusz ab2 u2-rum lugal-an-da ensi2 lagasz-ka unu3-de3-ne ka gurum2-ma-ka szu-a bi2-gi4 1(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 250. 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 (P222019) — 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.