Position in chronology
BIN 08, 029
About this tablet
A small Early Dynastic legal tablet from Isin recording what appears to be a field-boundary dispute between two named individuals: someone pulled a peg — a boundary marker — out of a field, an act tantamount to land theft under Sumerian law. The settlement involved a donkey and a dairy delivery, witnessed before Ur-su, a donkey herder, and the document closes with the standard formula 'the matter is concluded' before routing the record to the governor of Nippur. Among the earliest legal records in human history, this tablet shows that Sumerian scribes were already deploying standardized legal formulas and institutional hierarchies to resolve property disputes in third-millennium BCE southern Iraq.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Lugal-nigzu and Ur-nibeda were parties to a legal matter in which a boundary peg was removed from a field. As part of the resolution, a donkey was released and a dairy delivery was formally declared — all of it transacted before Ur-su, a donkey herder who served as witness. A section mentioning a house and wages is too damaged to read with confidence. The document closes: 'The matter is settled — to the governor of Nippur.' A final broken line notes that something remains available; the rest is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineLugal-nigzu — Ur-nibeda — from the field a peg was pulled out; a donkey was released there; milk was declared there — before Ur-su, the donkey herder; house ... [broken] wages — distributed — [KU] ... the matter is concluded; to the governor of Nippur; ... [is] available.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
lugal-nig2-zu ur2-ni-be6-da asza5-ga gag bi2-zi-ge-[esz2] ansze i3-na-du8-a ga-su i3-na-du11 igi ur-su sipa ansze-sze3 e2 x [...] a2 ba KU a inim-<be6> al-til ensi2 nibru-sze3 x [(x)] a-gal2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — BIN 08, 029. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Nies Babylonian Collection, Yale Babylonian Collection, New Haven, Connecticut, USA (P212608) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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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.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.
The oldest surviving law code in human history. The principle that the state — not the wronged family — defines and enforces justice begins here.