Position in chronology
BIN 08, 027
About this tablet
A small Early Dynastic account of barley — roughly 2,500 years before Christ — listing five allotments or repayments of grain, each tied to a named man. One is identified as a builder, another as a shepherd, and one is named as the son of his mother rather than his father, which is a characteristic feature of the oldest Sumerian records. The heading marks the first and largest entry, three gur of barley, as 'repaid,' suggesting the tablet tracks grain returned to or issued by an institutional store. It is ordinary bookkeeping, but it preserves the names and trades of five otherwise unknown people.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Barley account: three gur repaid by E-gi, son of Ama-NU+NU. Then one gur and one barig for Amar-giri the mason; one gur of top-grade barley for Amar-kua-ra the shepherd; one gur and two barig for Lugal-nigzu; and the same again, one gur and two barig, for Lugal-damda. Five entries, five men, one commodity — the kind of short grain ledger a temple or estate scribe would draw up and file away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 gur of barley, repaid (še su-ga): E-gi, son of Ama-NU+NU. 1 gur 1 barig: Amar-giri, the builder. 1 gur of prime barley: Amar-kua-ra, the shepherd. 1 gur 2 barig: Lugal-nigzu. 1 gur 2 barig: Lugal-damda.
Our translation engine — Opus 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.
Engine notes
read from photo10 uncertain terms ↓
- su-ga — Standard ED Sumerian for 'received' or 'returned' (lit. 'entered'); the formula confirms this is a receipt or return-of-grain entry rather than a disbursement.
- e-gi — Likely a personal name, but could conceivably be a title or institutional label; the combination e + gi is attested as a name in ED texts.
- ama-|NU+NU| — A personal name containing the sign compound NU+NU (a ligature); the exact reading of the compound sign is uncertain — it may be a specific deity name or an epithet. The # in the transliteration flags this uncertainty.
- amar-giri16 — Personal name: 'calf of the divine Giri' or similar; giri16 is a reading of a divine name sign whose vocalization in this period is debated.
- szitim — Sumerian šitim, 'builder' or 'construction worker'; well attested in ED administrative texts as a professional title.
- sag sze — Literally 'head of barley' — could mean a principal allocation, a ration head-count total, or a first/primary barley entry. The precise administrative meaning here is uncertain.
- amar-ku6-a-ra2 — Personal name: possibly 'calf/young of the fish(-god)' or similar; ku6 = fish, a-ra2 may be a divine epithet or directional suffix. Reading is uncertain.
- sipa# — Sumerian sipa, 'shepherd'; the # indicates slight damage or uncertainty in the sign on the tablet, but the reading is highly probable from context.
- lugal-nig2-zu — Personal name: 'the king knows his property/affairs' or 'the king is your lord'; nig2-zu is a common theophoric/royal name element.
- lugal-dam-da — Personal name: 'the king, together with (his) wife' or similar; dam = 'wife/spouse'; -da = comitative postposition. Both name signs are marked as uncertain (#) in the transliteration.
Reasoning ↓
The photograph shows a small, roughly lenticular clay tablet — a characteristic shape for Early Dynastic administrative documents. The obverse (central large view) is the most legible face: I can see horizontal ruling lines dividing the surface into registers, with cuneiform wedges visible in each. The signs are compact and somewhat worn, consistent with an ED III administrative hand. I can confirm the presence of numerical notations (the large circular impressions characteristic of the round stylus used for capacity measures — gur and barig signs) in the upper registers, and personal name signs in the lower registers, broadly consistent with the transliteration provided. The edge views show a few signs that appear to be continuation lines, again consistent with the transliteration's structure. I cannot verify the precise sign readings for the more damaged lower register entries (e.g., 'lugal-dam-da', 'lugal-nig2-zu') from the photograph at this resolution, but the overall structure — numerical notations followed by personal names and profession labels — aligns well with the transliteration. The sign 'su-ga' (meaning 'received back' or 'returned') is a common formula in ED grain accounts. The reverse (bottom large view) appears to bear only a few signs, possibly a total or date formula, but is too worn to read with confidence. No significant discrepancies between photo and transliteration are detected; the photograph cannot verify the exact damaged (#) signs in lines 8–9.
Generated by Claude Sonnet 4.6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 16, 2026 · 2290 in / 1303 out tokens
Transliteration
3(asz@c) sze gur su-ga e-gi dumu ama-|NU+NU| 1(asz@c) 1(barig@c) amar-giri16 szitim 1(asz@c) sag sze amar-ku6-a-ra2 sipa# 1(asz@c) 2(barig@c) lugal#-nig2#-zu 1(asz@c) 2(barig@c) lugal#-dam-da
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — BIN 08, 027. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Nies Babylonian Collection, Yale Babylonian Collection, New Haven, Connecticut, USA (P212607) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.