Position in chronology
RTC 026
About this tablet
A record of long-distance trade from the city of Girsu in southern Iraq, around 2400 BCE. A merchant named Ur-Enki has returned from Dilmun — the trading hub in the Persian Gulf, roughly modern Bahrain — with over 200 minas (about 100 kilograms) of copper, itemized by what it was exchanged for: barley, cedar resin, scented oil, and emmer wheat. The shipment was delivered to Dim-tur, the wife of the city governor, showing that the ruler's household ran its own commercial ventures. It is one of the earliest documents of the Gulf copper trade that linked Mesopotamia to Oman and the Indus world.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a merchant's delivery account. Ur-Enki, a trader, brought back a large consignment of copper from the land of Dilmun in the Persian Gulf and handed it over to Dim-tur, the governor's wife. The copper is broken down by what it was traded against: 72 minas for barley, 20 minas for cedar resin, 96 minas for scented oil, and 26 minas for emmer wheat — 214 minas in all, roughly a hundred kilograms of metal. The final mark notes this as the first such transaction (or the first year).
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine72 minas of aruda-copper — the aruda-copper is (the price) of barley; 20 minas — the aruda-copper is (the price) of cedar (resin); 96 minas — the aruda-copper is (the price) of scented oil; 26 minas — the aruda-copper is (the price) of emmer. (This is) the merchandise which from the land of Dilmun Ur-Enki, the merchant, to Dim-tur, the wife of the governor, brought. (Year/instance:) 1.
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
1(gesz2@c) 1(u@c) 2(asz@c) ma-na uruda a-ru12-da uruda a-ru12-da sze-kam 2(u@c) ma-na uruda a-ru12-da erin-kam 1(gesz2@c) 3(u@c) 6(asz@c) ma-na uruda a-ru12-da i3-ir-a-kam 2(u@c) 6(asz@c) ma-na uruda a-ru12-da imgaga3-kam nig2-sa10-ma kur dilmun-ta ur-en-ki dam-gar3 dim3-tur dam ensi2-ka-ra mu-na-de6-a-am6 1(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — RTC 026. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P221423) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
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.