Position in chronology
WF 043
About this tablet
A land-allotment record from the Early Dynastic city of Šuruppak (modern Fara, southern Iraq), dating to roughly 2600–2500 BCE. Five named farmers are each assigned a measured plot of agricultural land, ranging from 2 to 9 iku (roughly three-quarters of a hectare up to about three hectares), with a grand total of 26 iku — around nine and a half hectares — recorded at the close. The individual figures sum precisely to the stated total, showing that Šuruppak's scribes were already running rigorous, arithmetically balanced land registries nearly five thousand years ago. One of the five farmers bears the name Anzu — the same name as the great storm-eagle of Sumerian mythology — a vivid reminder that divine and heroic names were also everyday personal names in ancient Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A total of five farmers hold plots under the authority of Lumma, all apparently working land at or associated with An-še-gu₂. Me-maḫ-nu-sa holds 5 iku, Abzu-ki-du₁₀ holds 5 iku, Gal-la holds 9 iku (1 eše and 3 iku), Ada-DUR₂ holds 2 iku, and Anzu holds 5 iku. Their combined holdings come to exactly 1 bur, 1 eše, and 2 iku of farmland — 26 iku in total, confirmed by the closing summary.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5 iku of field — Me-maḫ-nu-sa 5 iku — Abzu-ki-du₁₀ 1 eše 3 iku — Gal-la 2 iku — Ada-DUR₂ 5 iku — Anzu [Category:] farmers [of/at] An-še-gu₂ Total: 1 bur 1 eše 2 iku of field Lumma
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
5(iku@c) GAN2 me-mah-nu-sa2 5(iku@c) abzu-ki-du10 1(esze3@c) 3(iku@c) gal5-la2 2(iku@c) a-da-DUR2 5(iku@c) anzu engar an-sze3-gu2 1(bur3@c) 1(esze3@c) 2(iku@c) GAN2 lum-ma
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — WF 043. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (P011000) — 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.