Position in chronology
Nik 1, 262
About this tablet
This small clay tablet is a balanced account from the administrative archive of Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler (ensi2) of the city-state of Lagash, around 2350 BCE. It records a deficit in cheese owed by the shepherds who tended the palace's nanny-goat flocks, a shortfall that the overseer Eniggal weighed and formally recorded against them. Texts like this one come from the famous 'queen's household' archive at Girsu — one of the richest surviving bodies of Early Dynastic administrative records, documenting how a royal estate tracked its herds, dairy products, and the accountability of the herders who managed them.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The account shows a shortfall: four ban2 of cheese charged to the 'restitution house,' and two ban2 of cheese charged against a person named Munigame. Both amounts are debts owed by the shepherds responsible for the nanny-goat flocks — the overseer Eniggal weighed out and formally logged the deficit against them. This happened in the month of the Baba festival. The record tablet was handed over to the shepherds and the debt was entered on their account, under the authority of Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash. The tablet is numbered '2' at the close, likely marking it as one entry in a larger set of accounts.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineDeficit: 4 ban2 of cheese (owed) — the house of restitution; 2 ban2 of cheese — Munigame(?); (these are debts of) the shepherds of nanny-goats, weighed out against them (as outstanding deficit). Eniggal, the overseer. Month: festival of Baba. Its tablet was transferred to them, (and) placed on their account. (Under the authority of) Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash. 2 (tablet/entry number).
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
la2-a 4(ban2@c) ga'ar e2-ki-be2-gi4 2(ban2@c) ga'ar mu-ni-na-ga-me sipa ud5-da-ke4-ne ba-neda-la2 en-ig-gal nu-banda3 iti ezem-ba-ba6-ka dub-bi e-neda-bala gu2-ne-ne-a <e-ne-gar> bara2-nam-tar-ra dam lugal-an-da ensi2 lagasz-ka 2(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 262. 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 (P222031) — 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.