Position in chronology
Nisaba 25, 33
About this tablet
A small administrative ration tablet from Ur, dating to the Early Dynastic period (roughly 2600–2350 BCE). It records disbursements of food — bread, beer, barley, and ceramic vessels — distributed to several named individuals, including a herdsman (sipa-ansze), a person named Ur-ga, a porter (sagix), and a daughter of the household. Tablets like this were the everyday bookkeeping of a temple or estate administration, tracking who received what and when. Its survival gives us a rare glimpse into the mundane logistics of feeding a Sumerian institutional workforce.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records a series of small food rations issued to named workers and dependents. The herdsman received a share; Lugal-[something] got four units of beer and barley; Ur-ga received one bread-ration and one vessel; a female porter received three portions of barley and bread; and a young girl (daughter) also received an allocation. Sag-ku5 appears as another recipient. Several more entries follow, but the text breaks off and the final lines are too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[n] ga sipa-ansze 4 (units), beer (and) barley — Lugal-[...] [...] DIN 1 (unit), bread 1 (unit), vessel — Ur-ga 3 (units), TAK4; porter's (ration): barley, bread (for a) daughter 2 (units), bread (and) barley(?) 3 (units) [...] 1 (unit), vessel — Sag-ku5(!) 1 (unit) [...] 1 (unit) [...] 1 (unit) [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[n] ga sipa-ansze 4(N01@f) , kasz sze lugal#-[...] [...] DIN 1(N01@f) , ninda 1(N01@f) , dug ur-ga 3(N01@f) , TAK4 sagix(|SILA3.DU8|) sze# ninda dumu-munus 2(N01@f) , ninda# sze#? 3(N01@f) [...] 1(N01@f) , dug sag-ku5#! 1(N01@f) [...] 1(N01@f) [...] 1(N01@f) [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — Nisaba 25, 33. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P449020) — 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.