Position in chronology
TCBI 2/1, 10
About this tablet
A small Early Dynastic ration tablet, probably from Zabalam in southern Iraq, now in the Banca d'Italia collection in Rome. It records measured allotments of barley handed out to four people identified partly by name and partly by office — an overseer, a man called Gešgal-ni, a scribe, and one Bara-sag-nudi — with the palace named as the source or destination and a month number closing the account. Documents like this are the ordinary bookkeeping of a temple or palace household around 2400 BCE, and they show that officials were paid in grain, in graded amounts by rank.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Barley issued: an unspecified amount (the figure is broken away) to the overseer; 2 barig to Gešgal-ni; 3 barig to the scribe; 5 ban to Bara-sag-nudi. The account is charged to the palace, apparently delivered under the authority of a chief official. Dated to the fifth month. The back of the tablet was left blank.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[... gur(?)] of barley — [PN], the overseer (nu-banda); 2 barig of barley — Gešgal-ni; 3 barig of barley — the scribe; 5 ban of barley — Bara-sag-nudi. The palace — delivered(?) — the chief(?). Month 5. (Reverse: uninscribed)
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[...] sze [gur] x nu-banda3 2(barig@c) sze geszgal-ni 3(barig@c) sze dub-sar 5(ban2@c) bara2-sag3-nu-di e2-gal DU gal iti!(UD) 5(disz@t)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC) ?) — TCBI 2/1, 10. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Banca d'Italia, Rome, Italy (P382015) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.