Position in chronology
DP 210
About this tablet
This is a small administrative receipt from the palace archive of Bara-namtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler of the city-state of Lagash around 2400 BCE, found at the site of Girsu (modern Tello). It records two goats brought in as a recurring ('mashdaria') offering, tied to a specific festival month sacred to the goddess Nanše, and handed over to the palace where a livestock official called the 'fattener' processed the disbursement. Texts like this one are the everyday bookkeeping of one of the world's earliest bureaucracies — tracking exactly which animals moved from herders and temple officials into the ruling household's stores.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One short-horned goat was brought in as the regular offering credited to Gešgalsi, of Gal-UN's household. A second goat, of a particular quality, was delivered by Dugru, the temple administrator — both intended for Bara-namtara. This happened in the month of Nanše's malt-feast, and the animals were brought to the palace, where Enku the livestock-fattener processed and disbursed them; four animals in total were accounted for in this transaction.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 short-horned goat: mashdaria-offering (regular offering) — (of) Gešgalsi, (of) Gal-UN. 1 goat, sig-grade: the temple administrator (sanga) Dugru (brought it) — for Bara-namtara. Month: "the malt-feast of Nanše." It was brought/delivered to the palace. Enku, the fattener, disbursed (it): total 4.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(asz@c) masz lugud2-da masz-da-re-a geszgal-si gal-UN-ka 1(asz@c) masz sig sanga dug-ru bara2-nam-tar-ra iti ezem munu4 gu7 nansze-ka e2-gal-la mu-na-kux(DU) en-ku3 kuruszda-e ba-ra 4(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 210. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P220860) — 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.