Position in chronology
WF 136
About this tablet
A textile disbursement record from the city of Šuruppak (modern Fara, southern Iraq), written during the Early Dynastic IIIa period, roughly 2600–2500 BCE. A temple or palace scribe logged the allocation of garments to named functionaries — a cupbearer, a barber, and a temple administrator among them — with a separate and larger block of fourteen garments earmarked for an institution tied to Dilmun, the ancient trading emporium in the Persian Gulf (modern Bahrain). The routine bookkeeping is enlivened by that Dilmun connection: by the mid-third millennium, Šuruppak's administrative apparatus was already enmeshed in long-distance Gulf trade networks. Roughly a third of the obverse text is lost to a break in antiquity, leaving several recipient entries unrecoverable.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet opens with ten garments disbursed to Su-mu-aštar — whose title is lost to damage — followed by individual allocations: one garment to Nanna the cupbearer, one to the man recorded as 'My Brother,' and a combined entry of a garment plus a grain measure for Utu-ursag, who serves as both barber and temple administrator. The middle section of the tablet is broken and cannot be read. The record closes with a larger disbursement of fourteen garments directed to the institution known as the House of Good Prayer, held under the authority of the chief of Dilmun.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine10 garments: Su-mu-aštar[,] man [PN PN —] [...broken...] [...] [traces —] minister[;] 1 (garment): Nanna, cupbearer; 1 (garment): Šeš-gu10; 1 [and] 3 barig: Utu-ursag, barber, temple administrator; 14 garments: e2-šud3-du10, chief of Dilmun.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(u@c) tug2 su-mu-asz-tar2# lu2 x x x [...] [...] x x sukkal# 1(asz@c) nanna sagi 1(asz@c)# szesz#-gu10 1(asz@c) 3(barig@c) utu-ur-sag szu-i sanga-GAR 1(u@c)# 4(asz@c) tug2 e2-szud3-du10 gal-dilmun
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — WF 136. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (P011094) — 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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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.