Position in chronology
Nik 1, 285
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic III administrative tablet from Girsu (ancient Lagash), one of thousands recovered from the state and temple economy of that city. It records a tally of building timber — beams, a finished-wood door, and a door-bolt — allocated for a structure called 'the house of Lugal-ušumgal,' checked or tallied by an overseer official (nu-banda3). Such tablets show the meticulous bookkeeping of a Sumerian city-state that tracked even individual doors and beams flowing into construction projects nearly 4,500 years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Thirty-four roof-beams, one finished wooden door, and one door-bolt were issued for the house (household or estate) of a man named Lugal-ushumgal. The next line or two of the record are broken and cannot be read. An overseer signed off on the account, noting that the wood had been counted or tallied — the total given as five (likely five bundles, loads, or a summary count rather than five individual pieces).
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine30(+)4 ur3-beams (roof-beams), 1 door of dressed/finished wood, 1 door-bolt (sag-kul) — (for) the house of Lugal-ušumgal. [...]-th [...] (break / illegible) The overseer (nu-banda3). Its wood was counted/reckoned: 5.
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
3(u@c) 4(asz@c) ur3 1(asz@c) ig gesz du7-[a] 1(asz@c) sag-kul e2 lugal-usz-sux(MUSZ) [x x]-kam [...] [...] nu-banda3 gesz-bi mu-szid 5(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 285. 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 (P222054) — 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.