Position in chronology
OSP 1, 148
About this tablet
An administrative memorandum from Early Dynastic Nippur, one of the oldest cities of Sumer, recording loads of ninni5-rush — a marsh plant used for matting, baskets, and fuel. A scribe tallies how many loads are assigned to or held by named individuals, including men with Akkadian names like La-gipum and Puzurra, and notes which portions are 'on hand' in storage. It is a small window into the everyday resource bookkeeping of a Mesopotamian institution some 4,400 years ago, and into the mixed Sumerian-Akkadian community at Nippur.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a stock-and-issue note about bundles of rushes. Three loads of ninni5-rush are booked to a person whose name is mostly broken away, with a note of how much is currently in store. Then the individual allotments: two loads to La-gipum, two to the son of A-kigal, two to Puzurra, one (probably) to someone whose name is lost, and three to Nin-me-sag. The final line records that three loads remain on hand in the storehouse. Several names and figures are chipped away, but the shape of the account — who got what, and what is left — is clear.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 loads (gu2) of ninni5-rush — [PN ...]-gi-[...]: [x] of it on hand (deposited); 2 (loads): La-gipum; 2 (loads): the son of A-kigal; 2 (loads): Puzurra; 1(?) (load): [...]; 3 (loads): [Nin-me]-sag(?); 3 of it on hand (deposited).
Our translation engine — Fable 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(asz@c) ninni5 gu2 [...]-gi-[...] [x] gal2#-la-be6 2(asz@c) la-gi-pum 2(asz@c) dumu a-ki-gal 2(asz@c) puzur4-ra 1(asz@c)#? [...] 3(asz@c) [nin?-me]-sag7# 3(asz@c) gal2-la-be6#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — OSP 1, 148. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P221643) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.