Position in chronology
RA 010, 065 018 etc. (cast copies)
About this tablet
A barley-ration receipt from the great administrative center of Girsu in southern Iraq, written around 2047 BCE under the Third Dynasty of Ur. Three named laborers — each identified by his father's name — receive one barig (about 60 liters) of barley apiece as conscripted workers attached to the temple of the god Nindara. It is a tiny snapshot of the vast state bureaucracy that tracked every worker and every measure of grain, dated by the month and by the year following a royal military campaign against Kimaš in the Zagros mountains.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Payroll record: barley rations issued at the standard royal measure. Lugal-ušur, son of Ur-Eanna, received one barig; Lu-Nindara, son of Lu-pada, one barig; Lu-isa, son of Ur-Enki, one barig. That makes three workmen at one barig each — three barig of barley in total. These men are conscripted laborers assigned to the temple of Nindara. Issued in the month of Gana-maš, in the year after the destruction of Kimaš.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 barig of barley (royal measure) — Lugal-ušur, son of Ur-Eanna; 1 barig — Lu-Nindara, son of Lu-pada; 1 barig — Lu-isa, son of Ur-Enki. Total: 3 male workers at 1 barig each; its barley: 3 barig. Conscripted workers (ḫe-dab) of the temple of Nindara. Month: "Gana-maš." Year after "Kimaš was destroyed."
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
1(barig) sze lugal lugal-uszur4 dumu ur-e2-an-na 1(barig) lu2-nin-dar-a dumu lu2-pa3-da 1(barig) lu2-i3-sa6 dumu ur-en-ki szunigin 3(disz) gurusz 1(barig)-ta sze-bi 3(barig) he2-dab5 e2 nin-dar-a iti GAN2-masz mu us2-sa ki-masz ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — RA 010, 065 018 etc. (cast copies). No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: BM 088807 & BM 088678 & BM 088742 & Cugnin 018 & Cugnin 019 & Erm 04119 & UM 29-15-951 & UM 29-15-953 & UM 29-15-959 & WML 34.42 (British Museum, London, UK; private: Cugnin, France; State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation; University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; World Museum Liverpool, Liverpool, UK) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P121373). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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.
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.