Position in chronology
WF 079
About this tablet
An administrative barley account from the ancient city of Šuruppak (modern Fara, in southern Iraq), dating to roughly 2600–2500 BCE. It records both incoming and outgoing quantities of barley and malt, with named individuals — a boatman called Mes-pa3, another boatman Ur-sud3, and a man named Lugal-en-lil2 — appearing as parties to the transactions. The paired formula of 'received' and 'disbursed' is standard Fara-period bookkeeping, tracking grain moving through a storehouse or institution. This tablet is one of hundreds of such economic records excavated at Šuruppak that collectively reveal a sophisticated bureaucratic grain economy operating nearly five thousand years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
An unspecified quantity plus one large measure of barley was taken in and logged as a delivery. Then about 140 liters of barley were paid out under a particular allocation category to a boatman — a man named Mes-pa3. A separate entry records two large measures of malted barley (used for brewing) allocated similarly, with Ur-sud3 the boatman and Lugal-en-lil2 listed as responsible parties. A section in the middle of the tablet is too damaged to read. The closing entry records two barig of reed-mat goods, also logged as a delivery.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[x +] 1 kor? of barley — received: — delivered. 2 barig, 2 ban of barley — disbursed: tagx-allocation, [person of the] boat, Mes-pa3. 2 kor, tagx-allocation, malt: 1 kor? [x] barig, Ur-sud3, boatman, Lugal-en-lil2. [...] 2 barig, reed-mat [work] — delivered.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[x] 1(asz@c)#? sze lid2-ga mu-DU 2(barig@c) 2(ban2) sze e3 tagx(LAK492) [lu2]-ma2 mes-pa3 2(asz@c) tagx(LAK492) munu4 1(asz@c)#? [x] (barig@c) ur-sud3 lu2-ma2 lugal#-en-lil2 [...] 2(barig@c) ad#-KID# mu-DU#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — WF 079. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (P011036) — 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.