Position in chronology
FTP 058
About this tablet
A small grain-accounting tablet from the Early Dynastic city of Šuruppak (modern Fara, southern Iraq), dated to roughly 2600–2500 BCE. It records several consignments of semolina — coarsely ground grain — some noted as sealed in storage, linked to a named woman, an institutional body (AB), and a man named Ur-Inanna. Part of the grain is traced to an estate or locality called Za3-sud3 ('the distant edge'). This is the administrative paperwork of the Šuruppak grain economy: a terse ledger entry tracking quantities of processed grain, by whom it was held, and where it came from.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet lists several grain transactions. First, a measure of roughly one barig plus four small units of semolina is logged as sealed in storage, associated with a woman named Munus-a-nu-kusz. A separate line notes semolina assigned to the AB institution, and another records a straight 3 barig of semolina. Finally, 20 units of sealed semolina are recorded as originating from the locality of Za3-sud3, with Ur-Inanna named as the responsible official or recipient.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine4 (asz) + 1 barig of semolina, sealed [in storage] — Munus-a-nu-kusz; Semolina, [AB institution]; 3 barig of semolina; 20 [units of] semolina, sealed [in storage], from Za3-sud3, Ur-Inanna.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
4(asz@c) 1(barig@c) dabin lid2-ga# munus-a2-nu#-kusz2 dabin AB 3(barig@c) dabin# 2(u@c) dabin lid2-ga# za3-sud3-ta ur-inanna
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — FTP 058. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P222133) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. 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.