Position in chronology
WF 146
About this tablet
An early administrative tablet from Šuruppak (modern Fara, southern Iraq), dating to around 2600–2500 BCE, the Early Dynastic period. It records quantities of reeds or reed bundles distributed to or under the supervision of named individuals, with an overseer (ugula) named Nig2-si presiding over the transaction. The tablet is a typical example of the bureaucratic bookkeeping that supported Sumerian city-state economies — tracking who received what commodity in what amount. Several personal names are legible, giving us a rare glimpse of real people in a small institution managing daily resources nearly 4,500 years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Five bundles of reeds, under the oversight of the foreman Nig2-si. Five units disbursed. Five for Utu-[di?]-ku5; five more for Utu-[broken]. Then larger allotments: one major unit and three sub-units for Sa12-du5; one major unit and two sub-units for E2-si; one smaller unit and two sub-units for Kisal-si. Two units go to persons whose names are broken or illegible. The final readable entry records one unit for Mes-ki-nu-zu. The rest of the tablet is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5 bundles of reed — foreman: Nig2-si 5 disbursed — 5 Utu-[di?]-ku5[?] — 5 Utu-x-[x] — 1(N51) 3(N14) Sa12-du5 — 1(N51) 2(N14) E2-si — 1(N34) 2(N14) Kisal-si — 2(N51)[?] [x x] — n [...] — 1(N51) Mes-ki-nu-zu — [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
5(N51@f) gi ugula nig2-si 5(N51@f) ba-zi# 5(N51@f)# utu-[di?]-ku5#? 5(N51@f)# utu-x-[x] 1(N51@f) 3(N14@f) sa12-du5 1(N51@f) 2(N14@f) e2#-si 1(N34@ft) 2(N14@f) kisal#-si 2(N51@f)? x x n [...] 1(N51@f) mes!(UM)#-ki#-nu-zu [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC) ?) — WF 146. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (P011104) — 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.