Position in chronology
LB 0268
About this tablet
This is an Ur III period administrative record from Girsu (modern Tello), documenting a barley loan issued to twelve plowmen — 4 gur of grain apiece, 48 gur in total — drawn from stores associated with a man named Ur-Ašnan and a field called Egibil. The transaction was authorized under the seal of Adda, a temple official (sanga) of the goddess Inanna, and conducted through an intermediary named Ur-Baba. Such texts are the everyday bookkeeping of the Ur III state economy: grain moving from temple or institutional stores to agricultural workers, dated by the distinctive Mesopotamian practice of naming years after notable events — here, the selection of the en-priest of the moon-god Nanna through divination.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Twelve plowmen were given a barley loan of four gur each — 48 gur of barley altogether — drawn from grain associated with Ur-Ašnan and from the field known as Egibil. Adda, the temple administrator of Inanna, sealed the transaction, and it was handled through Ur-Baba, apparently also a plowman. The record is dated to the year in which the en-priest of the moon-god Nanna was chosen by extispicy (a form of divination). The document itself was written and sealed by Adda the scribe, son of Ur-abba, who held the office of sanga-priest of Inanna.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine12 plowmen — 4 gur barley (royal measure) each, its barley: 48 gur — barley loan of the plowmen, from Ur-Ašnan, from the field of Egibil ("New House"), sealed by Adda, sanga-priest of Inanna, via Ur-Baba, plowman(?), year: "the en-priest(ess) of Nanna was chosen by extispicy." (Seal:) Adda, scribe, son of Ur-abba, sanga-priest of Inanna.
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(u) 2(disz) engar 4(asz) sze gur lugal#-<ta> sze-bi 4(u) 8(asz) gur sze ur5-ra engar-re-ne ki ur-asznan-ta a!-sza3 e2-gibil4-le-ta!(GUD) kiszib3 ad-da sanga inanna giri3 ur-ba-ba6 engar? mu en nanna masz-e i3-pa3 ad-da dub-[sar] dumu ur-ab-[ba] sanga inanna
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — LB 0268. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: LB 0268 (de Liagre Böhl Collection, Netherlands Institute for the Near East, Leiden, Holland) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P388801). 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.