Position in chronology
FTP 036
About this tablet
A grain disbursement tablet from Šuruppak (modern Fara, southern Iraq), dating to roughly 2600–2500 BCE in the Early Dynastic IIIa period — one of the oldest phases of Mesopotamian urban record-keeping. Four named individuals or offices receive measured allocations of barley, with quantities ranging from a modest 4 ban to a substantial 3 barig. The recipients carry compound names built around the divine title NIN ('Lady'), typical of the Fara corpus. This is the routine accounting of a Bronze Age grain economy: rations recorded in wet clay, one line per person, before the tablet was set aside and dried.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records a barley issue to four recipients. Sag-nin-tuku — 'Beloved of the Lady' — received 2 barig and 1 ban, roughly 78 liters by approximate reckoning. A second person, whose name begins Me-[NIGIN2] but whose full name cannot be read due to damage, received 1 barig and 1 ban (about 42 liters). Nin-ama-na received the smallest share: 4 ban (about 24 liters). The largest allocation — 3 barig, roughly 108 liters — went to a person or office whose name or title is associated with a throne dais or shrine platform; the middle sign of that name is too damaged to read. The grain type or quality specified in line 1 is also partially lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 barig, 1 ban of barley — [lid2-ga] — Sag-nin-tuku; 1 barig, 1 ban — Me-[NIGIN2]-[x]; 4 ban — Nin-ama-na; 3 barig — [Bara2]-[x]-[gal2].
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
2(barig@c) 1(ban2@c) sze lid2#-ga# sag-nin-tuku 1(barig@c) 1(ban2@c) me#-NIGIN2# x 4(ban2@c) nin-ama-na 3(barig@c) bara2#?-x-gal2#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — FTP 036. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P222111) — 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.