Position in chronology
Nik 1, 302
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic administrative tablet from Girsu, part of the Nik 1 archive of institutional accounts. It records issues of wool, reckoned by weight (minas), to a group of named swineherds — men who tended pigs for a temple or palace household. The wool came out of a storehouse associated with a festival and was handed over through an overseer named Ur-igi-ama, with a final tally of five recipients or units. Tablets like this one are the bureaucratic backbone of early Mesopotamian institutions, tracking who received rations or materials and who was accountable for the transaction.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This record logs wool rations, weighed out in minas, given to a handful of pig-herders. The first two entries are too damaged to read in full, but the list continues with amounts assigned to a man called Sasa (reading uncertain), then to Enkisalsi, then to two more people whose names are lost to breaks in the tablet, and finally to a man named U-U. All of them are identified as swineherds. The wool was drawn from a storehouse tied to a festival, and the whole transaction was carried out under Ur-igi-ama, an overseer, who issued the goods. The tablet closes with a total figure of 5, presumably the count of recipients or allotments.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(asz@c) 2(disz@t) mina(s) of wool (tug₂) ... [......] ...... [......] 1(asz@c) [2(disz@t) mina(s) of wool] — Sasa(?) 1(asz@c) 2(disz@t) mina(s) of wool — Enkisalsi [1(asz@c) 2(disz@t) mina(s) of wool] — [......] [1(asz@c) 2(disz@t) mina(s) of wool] — [......] [1(asz@c) 2(disz@t) mina(s) of wool] — U-U the swineherds (sipa šáḫ) from the storehouse of the festival (ganun ezem-da-ta) to Ur-igi-ama the overseer (nu-banda₃) he gave (e-ne-šum₂) 5 (total)
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(asz@c) 2(disz@t) ma-[na] tug2 x [...] x-[...] 1(asz@c) [2(disz@t) ...] sa6-sa6?* 1(asz@c) 2(disz@t) en-[kisal]-si [1(asz@c) 2(disz@t) ...] [1(asz@c) 2(disz@t) ...] [1(asz@c) 2(disz@t)] U2-U2 sipa szah2 ganun ezem*-da-ta ur-igi-ama-sze3 nu-banda3 e-ne-szum2 5(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 302. 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 (P222071) — 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.