Position in chronology
WF 116
About this tablet
A small administrative ration tablet from Šuruppak (modern Fara, Iraq), dating to roughly 2600–2400 BCE, the Early Dynastic III period. It records disbursements of bread rations — each measured in sila, approximately one liter — to at least three named individuals, probably workers or dependents of a temple or palace household. The Fara archive, to which this tablet belongs, is one of the oldest well-documented administrative collections ever found, and documents exactly like this one show how tightly Sumerian institutions tracked who received what. A final entry at the bottom of the tablet is too damaged to recover.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Thirteen one-liter bread rations were issued to Lugal-nig-ba-bara-du; twelve went to Ur-ab-si (reading uncertain); and seven to a farmer described as resident or settled on the land. A fourth entry appears at the bottom of the tablet but is too broken to read. A routine disbursement record, capturing a single round of rations with nothing more than the quantities and the recipients' names.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine13 bread-rations of (one) sila (each) — [for] Lugal-nig-ba-bara-du; 12 — Ur-ab-si[?]; 7 — (for) the settled farmer; [...] ...[KA?]...
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Engine notes
read from photo6 uncertain terms ↓
- ninda sila3 — 'ninda' is the standard sign for bread/food ration; 'sila3' is a capacity measure (approximately one litre). The combination likely denotes bread rations measured in sila, but whether these are daily, monthly, or other allocations is not specified in this fragment.
- Lugal-nigba-bara3-du10 — A compound personal name. Literal elements: lugal = 'king/lord'; nig2-ba = 'gift/allocation'; bara3 = uncertain, possibly 'throne-dais' or a title element; du10 = 'good/sweet'. The full meaning of the name as a unit is unclear; it may be a theophoric or honorific compound.
- ur-ab-si#? — Personal name; 'ur' is a common name prefix meaning 'servant/man of'; 'ab-si' is uncertain — possibly a deity name or epithet. The '#?' in the transliteration flags that the reading of the final sign(s) is uncertain, confirmed by photo damage in that area.
- engar-tusz-sze3 — 'engar' = farmer/ploughman; 'tusz' = to sit/dwell; 'sze3' is a directive postposition or name element. This may be a personal name meaning something like 'the farmer who dwells [there]' or a professional designation.
- x-KA#? — The final entry is too fragmentary to read. 'KA' is the sign for mouth/word/opening, but its function here — whether part of a personal name, a commodity label, or an institutional term — cannot be determined from the surviving traces.
- 1(u@c) 3(asz@c) / 1(u@c) 2(asz@c) / 7(asz@c) — Numerical notations in the Early Dynastic system: '1(u@c)' = ten units in the capacity/ration system; 'asz@c' = single units. So 13, 12, and 7 respectively. The exact commodity unit (daily rations? monthly?) is not specified.
Reasoning ↓
The photograph shows the obverse (top image) and reverse (bottom image) of a small, rounded clay tablet catalogued as VAT 12623. The obverse is legible in outline: four ruled lines of cuneiform signs are visible, and the wedge impressions are moderately clear despite surface erosion and a diagonal crack running across the face. I can confirm the presence of numerical notation signs (stacked wedges consistent with the 1(u@c)/3(asz@c) and similar notations) in the upper area, and sign clusters in subsequent lines that are consistent with the transliteration's personal names, though fine sign resolution is insufficient to independently read every component of the compound names. The reverse (bottom image) is almost entirely effaced — very faint traces only, consistent with it being uninscribed or too worn to read; a museum inventory number '12623' is visible in modern ink at the bottom. The transliteration provided aligns with what is visually discernible on the obverse: numerical signs followed by what appear to be multi-sign personal name sequences. The '#?' notations on 'ur-ab-si' and 'KA' honestly reflect uncertainty that the photo corroborates — those areas show faint or damaged signs I cannot independently resolve. The sign 'ninda' (bread/ration) and 'sila3' (a capacity measure) in line 1 are standard Early Dynastic administrative vocabulary well attested at Shuruppak. Confidence is 'low' due to the surface damage, the fragmentary final lines, and the inherent difficulty of reading proto-cuneiform personal names without a full parallel corpus match.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 16, 2026 · 1782 in / 1242 out tokens
Transliteration
1(u@c) 3(asz@c) ninda sila3 [...] lugal-nig2-ba-bara3-du10 1(u@c) 2(asz@c) ur-ab-si#? 7(asz@c) engar-tusz-sze3 [...] x-KA#?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — WF 116. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (P011074) — 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.