Position in chronology
Nik 1, 282
About this tablet
This small clay tablet from Girsu (ancient Tello) is one of dozens of terse account records from the household archive of Bara-namtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler (ensi2) of the city-state of Lagash in the mid-24th century BCE. It tallies quantities of wooden containers and measured amounts of poplar and fruit-wood destined for the wife of the ruler of the rival city of Adab — part of a documented pattern of gift exchange between elite women of different Sumerian city-states. Such tablets, some of the earliest detailed bureaucratic records in existence, reveal how palace households tracked wood, timber products, and diplomatic gifts down to individual measures.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a short receipt or delivery note: 6 containers of white poplar-wood, 5 containers of a plant or wood called sze-du10, 61 measures of poplar timber, and 240 measures of apple-wood are recorded as going to the wife of the governor of Adab. The sender is named as Bara-namtara — the well-known wife of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash — who evidently sent this shipment of wood products as part of an exchange between the two royal households.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine6 ma-dul10 (containers) of white mes-wood, 5 ma-dul10 of sze-du10, 61 kab2-ku (measures) of poplar (ildag4), 240 kab2-ku (measures) of apple-wood (haszhur): (for) the wife of the ensi2 of Adab — (from) Bara-namtara.
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
6(asz@c) ma-dul10 mes babbar2 5(asz@c) ma-dul10 sze-du10 1(gesz2@c) 1(asz@c) kab2-ku ildag4 4(gesz2@c) kab2-ku haszhur dam ensi2 adab-ka-ke4 bara2-nam-tar-ra
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 282. 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 (P222051) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.