Position in chronology
DP 178
About this tablet
This is a wool-distribution record from the household administration of Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of the city-state of Lagash around 2400 BCE. It lists small allotments of shorn wool given to named individuals and groups of workers — a herald, boatmen who haul tow-ropes, and men associated with dairy deliveries — as part of the routine rationing system run by the queen's own estate. Tablets like this one, part of a large archive found at Girsu, are some of the earliest detailed evidence for how a Mesopotamian palace organized labor and paid its dependents in kind rather than coin.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a payroll slip. Five bundles of wool went to a man named Abgal, and two bundles went to the herald Nimgir-Ešatum. Another five bundles — one each — were handed out to the crew of boatmen who haul the tow-rope; they've signed off as received. The workers who deliver milk (or perhaps a milk-silver payment) also got their share. All of this was authorized and issued by Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda the ruler of Lagash — this was the first such distribution.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5 units of shorn wool: for Abgal. 2 units of shorn wool: for Nimgir-Ešatum (the herald). 5 (units) — for the men who haul the boat-tow-rope, wool 1 unit each — received. The men who bring the pure milk (or: the silver of the dairy) — Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash, gave (this) to them. First (occasion).
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
5(asz@c) siki bar-udu abgal2 2(asz@c) siki bar-udu nimgir-esz3-a-tum2 5(asz@c) lu2 ma-sa2 il2-la siki bar-udu 1(asz@c)-ta szu ba-ti lu2 ga ku3 de6-a-ne bara2-nam-tar-ra dam lugal-an-da ensi2 lagasz-ka-ke4 e-ne-ba 1(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 178. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P220828) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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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.