Position in chronology
TLB 03, 148
About this tablet
A barley-loan receipt from the great provincial capital of Girsu in southern Iraq, dated by its year-name to the reign of King Shulgi of Ur, around 2046 BCE. Six gur of barley (roughly 1,800 liters) are advanced as an interest-bearing loan to soldiers serving the governor, drawn from a state granary and issued under the seal of the scribe Lu-girizal. It is a small but telling window into how the Ur III state financed its military personnel through the grain-credit system, with named foremen and captains accountable for the transaction.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Receipt: six gur of barley, measured by the official royal standard, issued as a loan to the governor's soldiers, men of Uruk. The grain was drawn from the granary at Barasiga and disbursed by Ur-Nanshe, with the transaction certified by the sealed document of Lu-girizal. Responsible officers: Shesh-lugal-pa'e, foreman, and Ur-Baba son of Ur-saga, captain. Dated to the extra month added after the barley-harvest month, in the year the king destroyed Harshi, Hurti, and Kimash. The seal reads: Lu-girizal, scribe, son of Lu-Ashnan.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine6 gur of barley (by the) royal (measure), barley loan (for) the soldiers of the governor, citizens of Uruk, from the granary of Barasiga, from Ur-Nanshe; sealed tablet of Lu-girizal. Foreman: Shesh-lugal-pa'e. Captain: Ur-Baba, son of Ur-saga. Month: extra (intercalary) 'Barley harvest' (13th month). Year: 'Harshi, Hurti, and Kimash were destroyed.' (Seal:) Lu-girizal, scribe, son of Lu-Ashnan.
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
6(asz) sze gur lugal sze ur5-ra aga3-us2 ensi2 dumu unu i3-dub bara2-si-ga-ta ki ur-nansze-ta kiszib3 lu2-giri17-zal szesz-lugal-pa-e3 ugula nu-banda3 ur-ba-ba6 dumu ur-sa6-ga iti# diri sze-sag11-ku5 mu ha-ar-szi hu-ur5-ti u3 ki-masz ba-hul lu2-giri17-zal dub-sar dumu lu2-asznan
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — TLB 03, 148. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: LB 0260 (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, P134289). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.