Position in chronology
CT 50, 015
About this tablet
An administrative record from Šuruppak (modern Fara, southern Iraq), written around 2600–2500 BCE during the Early Dynastic period. It tracks two separate consignments of woven garments and linen cloth routed through named royal officials called bailiffs (maškim). The first lot — two garments and two linen pieces — is assigned to a carpenter named U5-ri and is to be delivered to the city storehouse; the second lot of one and a half garments involves a return by someone named A-ḫu-ti and a delivery to a man named Mes-lu2-nu. Tablets like this are the ancient equivalent of a logistics memo: meticulous proof that Sumerian administrators tracked even small quantities of cloth through the hands of named officials.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Two garments and two linen garments go to U5-ri the carpenter. The bailiff is responsible for returning them, and they are to be delivered to the storehouse. A second entry records one and a half garments handled through the king's bailiff: A-ḫu-ti has returned these goods, and they were brought along to Mes-lu2-nu.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 garments, 2 linen [garments] — U5-ri the carpenter. The bailiff [who will] return [them]: to the storehouse they are to be brought. 1 [and] 1/2 garments. The king's bailiff. A-ḫu-ti has returned [them]. To Mes-lu2-nu [they were] brought along.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
2(asz@c) tug2 2(asz@c) gada u5-ri nagar maszkim-gi4 esz3-sze3 an-na-de6 1(asz@c) 1/2(DISZ@c) tug2 maszkim lugal a-hu-ti mu-gi4-a mes-lu2-nu-sze3 mu-da-de6
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — CT 50, 015. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: BM 015829 (British Museum, London, UK) — from Šuruppak (mod. Fara) ? — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P010028). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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.