Position in chronology
DP 143
About this tablet
This is an administrative tablet from Girsu, part of the great Early Dynastic III archive of the Lagash state temple economy (roughly 24th century BCE). It was written by or under the authority of En-iggal, a manager (nu-banda3) who repeatedly appears in this archive overseeing grain rations for workers, animals, and dependents of the temple household. Here small allotments of barley go out for feeding birds and as rations to named men — one explicitly tied to the neighboring city of Umma — with a note about grain from a threshing floor under a woman named Geme-Tarsirsira. It is a mundane bookkeeping entry, but it is exactly this kind of granular record that lets historians reconstruct how one of the earliest bureaucratic states tracked labor, livestock, and food down to the level of individual people and birds.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This receipt logs two grain disbursements from the temple stores at Girsu. First, two barig of barley went out to feed the birds, and En-ushurre took charge of it. Second, four ban2 of barley were issued as food rations to two men, Ur-mud and Andatila, associated with Umma. The tablet also notes that this was barley taken from the threshing floor belonging to Geme-Tarsirsira, consumed during the month known as "when the oxen are put out to pasture." The whole transaction — both entries — was authorized and recorded by En-iggal, the manager.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 barig barley — for the birds to eat — En-ushurre carried (it) off. 4 ban2 barley — the man of Umma: Ur-mud (and) Andatila — as barley rations, carried (it) off. Consumption: barley of the cut threshing-floor, of Geme-Tarsirsira. Month: "the oxen are pastured." En-iggal, the manager (nu-banda3), disbursed (rations) to them: 2.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
2(barig@c) sze muszen-ne2 gu7-de3 en-uszur3-re2 ba-de6 4(ban2@c) sze lu2 umma ur2-mud an-da-ti-la sze-ba-sze3 ba-de6 gu7 sze bara2 gur5-a geme2-tar-sir2-sir2-ka-kam iti gu4-ra2-bi2-mu2-a en-ig-gal nu-banda3 e-ne-[ba] 2(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 143. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P220793) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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.