Position in chronology
WF 109
About this tablet
A small, pillow-shaped clay tablet from the ancient Sumerian city of Šuruppak (modern Fara, Iraq), dating to around 2500 BCE — a simple tally of ten named individuals, each counted as one. Their names are characteristic Early Dynastic Sumerian compounds: some are theophoric, invoking the sun god Utu, the sacred underground waters of the Abzu, or the protective deity Lamma; others are descriptive, such as Amar-edin ('calf of the steppe') or En-kas4 ('lord of runners'). Such lists were the administrative workhorses of Early Dynastic palace and temple institutions — a scribe needed to record exactly who was present, assigned, or owed a ration, and simply wrote each name with a single count-mark beside it. The reverse is blank, confirming this is a one-sided roster rather than a multi-entry ledger.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Ten people, each counted as one: Ur-Utu, Lu-lal, E-munus, E-na-lu-lu, En-kas4, En-abzu-mud, E-šeš, Amar-edin, Lam-ma, and Lu-siki-USZ-AK. That is everything this tablet records — no task assigned, no date, no destination, just ten names ticked off by a scribe around 2500 BCE in the city of Šuruppak. The first two entries are slightly damaged at the edge, and the final name's last element remains unclear, but the roster is otherwise complete.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[1] Ur-Utu [1] Lu-lal 1 E-munus 1 E-na-lu-lu 1 En-kas4 1 En-abzu-mud 1 E-šeš 1 Amar-edin 1 Lam-ma 1 Lu-siki-USZ-AK
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[1(disz)] ur-utu [1(disz)] lu2-lal2 1(disz) e2#-munus 1(disz) e2#-na-lu-lu 1(disz) en-kas4# 1(disz) en-abzu-mud 1(disz) e2-szesz 1(disz) amar-edin 1(disz) lam-ma 1(disz) lu2-siki-USZ-AK
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — WF 109. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (P011067) — 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.