Position in chronology
Nik 1, 290
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic (Presargonic) administrative tablet from Girsu, part of the vast archive documenting the economy of the temple household of the goddess Baba under the rulers Lugalanda and Urukagina, around 2400 BCE. It records deliveries of bundles of reed — a staple raw material used for construction, matting, baskets, and fuel — gathered from a field and hauled in by a crew of elderly fishermen, then formally received into the orchard storehouse by the official En-iggal, a well-known overseer (nu-banda3) who appears in hundreds of similar Lagash texts. The note about '3 days of labor' at the end is a standard closing formula tracking the workdays charged to this task.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This record tallies four deliveries of reed bundles brought in from a field by named individuals or crews — 70 bundles credited to Lu-pa'e, 50 to Ne-sag, 50 to Lugal-ša, and 20 to Šubur — adding up to a total of 190 bundles. The reeds came from the field known as A'usta, and it was the crew of old fishermen who hauled them in. The overseer En-iggal then received the shipment into the orchard storehouse. The job was logged as three days' worth of labor.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine70 bundles of reed — Lu-pa'e. 50 bundles of reed — Ne-sag. 50 bundles of reed — Lugal-ša. 20 bundles of reed — Šubur. Total: 190 bundles of reed. From the field of A'us(ta) — the old fishermen carried (it). En-iggal, the overseer, to the storehouse of the orchard delivered (it). Labor(-assignment) of the 3rd day.
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(gesz2@c) 1(u@c) gi sa lu2-pa3 5(u@c) gi sa ne-sag 5(u@c) gi sa lugal!-sza3 2(u@c) gi sa szubur szu-nigin2 3(gesz2@c) 1(u@c) gi sa GAN2 a-us2-ta szu-ku6 ab-<ba>-ke4-ne mu-il2 en-ig-gal nu-banda3 ganun kiri6-ka i3-kux(DU) a2 u4 3(disz@t)-kam
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 290. 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 (P222059) — 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.