Position in chronology
SF 003
About this tablet
A personnel list from the ancient city of Šuruppak (modern Fara, southern Iraq), dating to around 2600–2500 BCE — one of the earliest cities in human history. A temple or palace scribe tallied a small group of individuals, probably workers or ration recipients, recording each person's name alongside a count of one (with a single entry of two). The names are themselves a small window into the human world of early Mesopotamia: one person is called Nin-zadim ('Lady of the Sculptor'), another Alam-i ('She/He of the Statue'), another Nin-iri-ša ('Lady of the City's Heart'). The tablet is broken at the top and along the right edge, but the surviving entries preserve real named individuals living in the world's first urban society.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a short headcount. Working down the surviving entries: one Nin-zadim, one Alam-i, two associated with Nin-iri-ša, one Lugal-something (the rest of the name is broken), one person whose name contains the word 'great' but is broken at both ends, one with a partially legible name beginning with A₂-la₂ (the signs are damaged), and one whose name ends in '-buru₅.' At least two more entries at the top are completely lost to breakage. Together they account for roughly ten individuals — a small work gang, a household roster, or a ration list, recorded in a few deft impressions on a lump of clay.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] (broken) [...] (broken) [1] Nin-zadim 1 Alam-i 2 Nin-iri-ša [1] Lugal-[...] 1 [...]-GAL-[...] 1 A₂-la₂(?)-[...] 1 [...]-buru₅
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...]-x [...]-x [1(asz@c)] nin-zadim 1(asz@c) a-lam-i 2(asz@c) nin-iri-sza3 [1(asz@c)] lugal-[...] 1(asz@c) [x-(x)]-GAL-[x-(x)] 1(asz@c) a2#-la2?-[x] 1(asz@c) x-buru5
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — SF 003. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (P010568) — 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.