Position in chronology
WF 020
About this tablet
An agricultural ledger from Šuruppak (modern Fara, southern Iraq), dating to roughly 2600–2500 BCE, near the dawn of Sumerian writing. It records four separate allocations of plow-donkeys — draft animals harnessed to pull plows — distributed in lots to named groups of farmers, all working under an administrative heading (an-sze3-gu2, probably a field district or 'upper embankment') tied to the palace economy. On the reverse, the scribe summed everything up: just under 200 plow-donkeys and 34 farmers in total, classified collectively as royal laborers. A small arithmetic slip — the individual entries add to 195, but the scribe wrote 196 — is preserved exactly as he made it, a very human moment in a 4,600-year-old spreadsheet.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Four consignments of plow-donkeys were issued — 90, 33, 41, and 31 animals — all counted as city donkeys. They were assigned to four teams of farmers: two groups of 11 and two groups of 6, with a donkey-driver also on record. The whole account falls under the heading 'an-sze3-gu2,' probably the name of the field district. Turning the tablet over, the scribe wrote the grand totals: 196 plow-donkeys (one more than the detail lines actually add up to — his arithmetic slipped by one) and 34 farmers. Everyone listed is designated a royal laborer, placing this operation squarely within the palace's managed agricultural estate.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine90 plow-donkeys 33 plow-donkeys 41 plow-donkeys 31 plow-donkeys city donkeys 11 farmers 11 farmers 6 farmers 6 farmers donkey-driver(s) an-sze3-gu2 196(!) plow-donkeys [total] city donkeys 34 farmers royal laborers
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(gesz2@c) 3(u@c) ansze-apin 3(u@c) 3(asz@c) <ansze>-apin 4(u@c) 1(asz@c) <ansze>-apin 3(u@c) 1(asz@c) <ansze>-apin ansze iri 1(u@c) 1(asz@c) engar 1(u@c) 1(asz@c) engar 6(asz@c) engar 6(asz@c) engar lu2 ansze lah5 an-sze3-gu2 3(gesz2@c) 1(u@c) 6(asz@c)! ansze-apin ansze iri 3(u@c) 4(asz@c) engar gurusz lugal
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — WF 020. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (P010977) — 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.