Position in chronology
Anonymous 270812
About this tablet
A small Early Dynastic account tablet, probably from Umma in southern Iraq, roughly the mid-third millennium BCE. It lists eight named men, each with a small number beside him — one or two units apiece — then totals the grain involved at 12 gur, notes a daily rate of one shekel, and closes with two further barley allotments measured in ban₂ for U₂-U₂-a and Lugal-ḫe₂. It is ordinary institutional bookkeeping: the kind of running tally a household or temple steward kept of who was owed what in grain.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet is a short payroll-style list. Eight men are named — Ab-ba, E-kur-nin, a second man whose name ends in -nin, Ur-ganun, Ab-zu-zu, Ur-nagar, U₂-U₂-a and Pa₄-pa₄ — each credited with one or two units. The grain involved comes to 12 gur in total, reckoned at a rate of one shekel a day. Two final entries record separate barley allotments: five ban₂ for U₂-U₂-a and four ban₂ for Lugal-ḫe₂.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 (unit): Ab-ba 2 (units): E-kur-nin 2 (units): […]-nin 1 (unit): Ur-ganun 1 (unit): Ab-zu-zu 2 (units): Ur-nagar 1 (unit): U₂-U₂-a 2 (units): Pa₄-pa₄ 12 gur of barley. Per day, 1 shekel measured out. 5 ban₂: U₂-U₂-a 4 ban₂: Lugal-ḫe₂
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1(asz@c) ab-ba 2(asz@c) e2-kur-nin 2(asz@c) x-nin 1(asz@c) ur-ganun 1(asz@c) ab-zu-zu 2(asz@c) ur-nagar 1(asz@c) U2-U2-a 2(asz@c) pa4-pa4 1(u@c) 2(asz@c) sze gur u4 1(asz@c) gin2 ag2 5(ban2@c) U2-U2-a 4(ban2@c) lugal-he2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Anonymous 270812. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: private: anonymous, unlocated (P270812) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.