Position in chronology
Kress 294
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III period administrative receipt, probably from Girsu, recording a disbursement of barley — a little over one gur measured by the royal standard — issued as rations for craftsmen. An official named Lu-Ningirsu, who was himself a scribe, took receipt of the grain from a man named Lu-kalla, and the transaction is dated by a year-name referring to the installation of the en-priest of Eridu. The tablet preserves what looks like two copies of the same transaction — an unsealed record followed by a sealed one bearing Lu-Ningirsu's own seal — a common bureaucratic double-entry practice in the tightly audited Ur III state economy.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A shipment of barley — 1 gur, 1 barig, and 3 ban2 by the royal measure — was handed over as rations for the palace or temple craftsmen. Lu-kalla supplied the grain, and Lu-Ningirsu signed for it. The transaction is dated to the year the en-priest of Eridu was installed. Below, the same entry is repeated and formally sealed: Lu-kalla is again named as the source, and the document carries the seal of Lu-Ningirsu, identified here as a scribe, son of a man whose name is now broken off.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 gur 1 barig 3 ban2 barley, royal measure, rations (šagal) for the craftsmen (gaszam), from Lu-kalla, Lu-Ningirsu received. Year: "the en-priest of Eridu (was installed)." [1 gur 1 barig 3 ban2] barley, royal measure, [rations for] the craftsmen, [from] Lu-kalla, seal of Lu-Ningirsu. Lu-Ningirsu, the scribe, son of x-[...].
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1(asz) 1(barig) 3(ban2) sze gur lugal sza3-gal gaszam ki lu2-kal-la-ta lu2-nin-gir2-su szu ba-ti mu en eridu [1(asz) 1(barig) 3(ban2)] sze# gur# lugal# [sza3-gal] gaszam [ki] lu2#-kal-la-ta kiszib3 lu2-nin-gir2-su lu2-nin-gir2-su dub-sar dumu x-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Kress 294. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Kress 294 (private: anonymous, Germany) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) ? — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P514392). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.