Position in chronology
RTC 007
About this tablet
A food-disbursement record from Girsu in southern Iraq, most likely produced in the administrative offices of the great temple-household of Lagash around 2500–2350 BCE. It logs allocations of flour, dark bread, barley, malt, garlic, and natron — the staple commodities of a large institutional kitchen — to named individuals and institutions, among them a person called Tirash, the god Enki or his temple, a person named An-ki, and the king himself, who receives a consignment of dark bread. Tablets like this are the everyday accounting paperwork of the palace-temple economy, tracking who received what from the central storehouses, written in an archaic script still transitioning from pictographic to fully cuneiform form.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records a chain of food allocations from an institutional storehouse. One large measure of flour goes to a recipient whose designation is damaged; twenty measures of flour and garlic follow. Ten measures of barley and natron are assigned to Tirash. One barig of malt-flour is divided into portions. A partially broken entry records flour and natron destined for Enki — most likely his temple. One barig of dark bread with flour, and ten measures of dark flour with garlic, are also allocated; the dark bread is specifically earmarked for the king. Eighty measures of barley-flour and one large measure of fine flour go to An-ki. The record closes with one barig of bread rations per head. Several entries are too damaged or abbreviated to recover with confidence.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 gur of flour — [for?] ag[...?] 20 sila3 of flour (and) garlic 10 (sila3 of) barley (and) natron — Tirash 1 barig of malt-flour, divided (into portions) [1 gur?] of flour (with) natron(?) — Enki 1 barig of dark bread (with) flour 10 (sila3) of dark flour (and) garlic dark bread (for) the king 80 sila3 of barley-flour 1 gur of fine flour — An-ki 1 barig of bread-ration (per head)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(asz@c) zi3@t ag2#? 2(u@c) sila3 zi3@t szum 1(u@c) sze naga4 ti-ra-asz2 1(barig@c) munu4 zi3 hal-hal 1(asz@c)# zi3@t naga4? en-ki 1(barig@c) ninda gi6 zi3@t 1(u@c) zi3@t gi6 szum ninda gi6 lugal 1(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) sze zi3@t sila3 1(asz@c) zi3@t sag8 an-ki 1(barig@c) NINDA@g-sag
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — RTC 007. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P010561) — 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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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.