Position in chronology
Nisaba 25, 52
About this tablet
A small Early Dynastic administrative tablet from Ur (modern Tell Muqayyar, southern Iraq), probably dating to around 2600–2400 BCE. It records rations or allocations — beer, bread, and other commodities — distributed to or associated with various named individuals and functionaries, including an overseer, an inspector, a cupbearer, and a woman designated 'engiz.' Tablets like this are the routine paperwork of a temple or palace storeroom, tracking who received what on a given day. The survival of personal titles and role-names makes it a small but real window into the social hierarchy of an Early Dynastic Mesopotamian institution.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records the distribution of several commodities: two jars of top-quality beer go to a person named NAGA-me, under the supervision of an overseer and inspector. One calf-unit and one other product are associated with SZAGAN. A small portion of bread is assigned to a cupbearer. One unit goes under the heading PA.MUNSUB — connected with donkeys — and one unit is allocated to an engiz-woman. The rest is either lost or too worn to read with confidence.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 jars(?) of prime beer — NAGA-me (under) overseer (and) inspector 1 — calf of SZAGAN 1 — [product of] SZAGAN 1 — small bread, [made by] cupbearer 1 — |PA.MUNSUB| (for/of) donkeys 1 — engiz-woman
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
2(N01@f) , kasz sag me-NAGA ugula maszkim 1(N01@f) , amar SZAGAN 1(N01@f) , ak SZAGAN 1(N01@f) , ninda tur ak sagi 1(N01@f) , |PA.MUNSUB|#-ansze 1(N01@f) , engiz
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — Nisaba 25, 52. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P449039) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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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.