Position in chronology
Nik 1, 292
About this tablet
This small lentil-shaped tablet from Girsu (ancient Tello) is an administrative receipt from the household archive of Baranamtara, the wife of Lugalanda, ruler of the city-state of Lagash in the Early Dynastic period (roughly 24th century BCE). It records a delivery of over six and a half mana of refined silver brought by a merchant traveling from Elam, the region to the east in what is now southwestern Iran — concrete evidence of long-distance trade feeding the palace economy of a Sumerian queen's household. Baranamtara ran an extensive economic institution of her own, and dozens of tablets like this one tracked incoming goods, wages, and offerings under her name.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A merchant arrived from Elam and delivered 6 1/2 mana and 2 shekels of refined silver — recorded here as some numbered installment or shipment, though the exact count is broken away. The merchant's name is only partly preserved, ending in '...Eurbidu.' The silver was received on behalf of Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash, with a final notation reading simply '4' — likely a year or entry number in the palace household's ongoing accounts.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine6 1/2 mana 2 shekels refined (washed) silver, the [...]-th (delivery/installment), [... E]ur-bidu, the merchant, from Elam he brought (it). (For) Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash. 4.
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) 1/2(asz@c) ma-na 2(disz@t) gin2 ku3 luh-ha [...]-kam [... e2]-ur2#-bi-du10 dam-gar3 elam-ta mu-de6 bara2-nam-tar-ra dam lugal-an-da ensi2 lagasz-ka 4(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 292. 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 (P222061) — 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.