Position in chronology
BIN 08, 173
About this tablet
A legal record from Nippur, roughly 2400 BCE, documenting a completed sale. A donkey herdsman named Ur-lugal handed over a mixed payment — silver, barley, pig fat, dates and a live pig — as the purchase price connected with a woman called Nin-gissu-nani, and the transaction was then ratified in a formal hearing held at the gate of the palace, the customary place for settling disputes and registering contracts. The closing lines list the men who stood as witnesses and confirmed the deal. It is a vivid snapshot of how early Sumerian law worked: payment in kind as much as in metal, and public confirmation at the city gate.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Payment received: four shekels of silver, twelve lidga and one barig of barley, forty-one litres of pig fat, two gur and one barig of dates, and one grass-fed pig. That is the full purchase price in the matter of Nin-gissu-nani, paid over by Ur-lugal, the donkey herdsman. The case was then heard and settled at the palace gate. Du-du and the other witnesses named — though several of their names are now broken away — confirmed the transaction. The final line is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse […] 4 shekels of silver; 12 lidga (and) 1 barig of barley; 41 sila of pig fat; 2 gur 1 barig of dates; 1 grass-fed pig — this is the purchase price of Nin-gissu-nani. Ur-lugal, the donkey herdsman, gave it to him. Reverse At the wall(?) of the gate of the palace he set its case straight (i.e. rendered the verdict). Du-du, … [ … ] DA AN [ … ] TI [ … ], the witnesses ("men of the word"), they confirm[ed it]. The … [ … ] … AN … (broken).
Our translation engine — Opus 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
[x] 4(asz@c)#? ku3 gin2# 1(u@c) 2(asz@c) 1(barig@c) sze lid2-ga 4(u@c) 1(asz@c) i3 szah2 sila3 2(asz@c) 1(barig@c) zu2-lum gur 1(asz@c) szah2 u2 nig2-sa10 nin-gissu-na-ni-kam ur-lugal sipa ansze-ke4 i3-szi-szum2 BAD abul e2-gal#-[la-ka] di-be6 si ab-sa2 du-du x [x x] DA AN [...] ti [x] lu2 inim#-[ma]-ke4#-ne# i3-gi#?-[ne?]-esz2#? nam [...] x AN x
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — BIN 08, 173. 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 (P212717) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.