Position in chronology
WF 140
About this tablet
An administrative ration list from Šuruppak (modern Fara, southern Iraq), written around 2600–2500 BCE during the Early Dynastic period. A scribe records the distribution of clarified butter — a prized fatty commodity — to a local storehouse and thirteen named individuals, including a courier, a donkey-overseer, a physician, and a gardener. Each recipient receives between 1 and 10 units, and the tablet closes with an arithmetically verified grand total of 40, confirming that Sumerian bureaucrats were checking their own sums more than four and a half millennia ago. The variety of occupational titles hints at a small but complex workforce managed through careful written accounting.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Ten units of clarified butter go to the Uri₃ storehouse, and another ten to the courier En-kaš₄. Smaller shares follow: two units each to [DUMU×NUN]-šita, Ur-Utu, and the donkey-overseer; one unit each to Tug₂-TE-DU and Lú-SI; two each to the physician and to Lamma; five to the gardener; and one each to Šeš-tur, En-abzu-mud, and Nig₂-lugud-da. Grand total: 40 units of clarified butter — the scribe's arithmetic is perfect.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine10 (units of) clarified butter — (for) the Uri₃ storehouse; 10 (for) En-kaš₄; 2 (for) [DUMU×NUN]-šita; 2 (for) Ur-Utu; 2 (for) the donkey-overseer; 1 (for) Tug₂-TE-DU; 1 (for) Lú-SI; 2 (for) the physician; 2 (for) Lamma; 5 (for) the gardener; 1 (for) Šeš-tur; 1 (for) En-abzu-mud; 1 (for) Nig₂-lugud-da; Grand total: clarified butter — 40.
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) i3-nun e2-uri3 1(u@c) en-kas4 2(asz@c) |DUMUxNUN|-szita 2(asz@c) ur-utu 2(asz@c) ugula-ansze 1(asz@c) tug2-TE-DU 1(asz@c) lu2-max(SI) 2(asz@c) a-zu5-zu5 2(asz@c) lam-ma 5(asz@c) nu-kiri6 1(asz@c) szesz-tur 1(asz@c) en-abzu-mud 1(asz@c) nig2-lugud-da an-sze3-gu2 i3-nun 4(u@c)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — WF 140. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (P011098) — 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.