Position in chronology
DP 034
About this tablet
An Early Dynastic administrative tablet from Šuruppak (modern Fara, southern Iraq), dating to roughly 2600–2400 BCE. It records several groups of institutional workers — including a small cohort of junior workers or apprentices, a contingent of 25 men, and 20 musicians — each listed under a named foreman. A quantity of malt (used for brewing beer, the standard workers' ration in this period) is also entered against a named official. The tablet closes with a delivery or disbursement notation, making it a routine piece of payroll or ration accounting from one of Mesopotamia's earliest literate urban centers. The presence of musicians as a distinct, numbered labor category is a vivid reminder that institutional temples and palaces of this era maintained permanent ensembles of singers as part of their regular workforce.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Under foreman Di-[Utu]: 2 junior workers, with Lu-Ad also listed. Under another foreman: Sud-ur-sag, overseeing an entry whose opening is lost. Under Ur-e2-gal's supervision: 25 workers. Separately: 20 musicians under AK. Against the name KA-zi-[da]: 12 measures of malt. The following lines are too damaged to read clearly — a reference to some chief official and another designation survive — and the whole account closes with the notation that these goods or persons were delivered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] 2 junior workers (apprentices), Di-[Utu], foreman. Lu-Ad, [...] Sud-ur-sag, foreman. 25 — Ur-e2-gal, foreman. 20 musicians — AK. 12 (units of) malt — KA-zi-[da]. [...] chief [...] [man?]-di, (blank) [was] 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] 2(asz@c)#? dumu#-dumu# di-[utu] ugula lu2-ad [...] sud3-[ur]-sag ugula# 2(u@c) 5(asz@c) ur-e2-gal ugula 2(u@c) nar AK 1(u@c) 2(asz@c) munu4 KA-zi#-[da] [...] gal?-[...] [lu2?]-di () [ba]-DU
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — DP 034. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P010051) — 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.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.