Position in chronology
TCBI 2/1, 29
About this tablet
A small Early Dynastic accounting tablet, probably from Zabalam in southern Iraq (around 2500 BCE), now in the Banca d'Italia collection in Rome. It records flour disbursed in two lots — a large 5-gur allotment to a household storehouse and a smaller 2-barig portion to a man named Ur-šubur — with the wife of the city-ruler named as the responsible party. The final line, "13 years, 5 months," is unusual: it most likely gives the span of time the account covers, a rare glimpse of long-term bookkeeping at this early date.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Flour issued: five gur to the storehouse, handed over; two barig to Ur-šubur, handed over. The transaction stands in the name of the governor's wife, of the place Kur-kur. Total period covered: thirteen years and five months.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5 gur of flour — (for) the E-nig-su (the "storehouse"), given; 2 barig — (for) Ur-šubur, given; the wife of the ensi (city-ruler), (from) the place Kur-kur; 13 years, 5 months.
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
5(asz@c) zi3 gur e2-nig2-su3 szum2-ma 2(barig@c) ur-szubur szum2-ma dam ensi2 ki kur-kur 1(u) 3(disz@t) mu 5(disz@t) iti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC) ?) — TCBI 2/1, 29. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Banca d'Italia, Rome, Italy (P382035) — 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.