Position in chronology
DP 261
About this tablet
This is a small cushion-shaped administrative tablet from Girsu, from the very end of the first dynasty of Lagash under king Urukagina (c. 24th century BCE), a ruler famous for his social reform edicts. It records two wool-bearing sheep placed in the care of a named shepherd, and a disbursement of sheep hides connected to a journey by a woman named Sasa — likely Urukagina's queen, known from other Lagash texts — to the city of Nina for a new-moon festival. Such tablets are everyday bookkeeping from the palace/temple household: livestock accounted for, festival travel noted, and goods issued in the king's name.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Two wool sheep are recorded in the care of the shepherd En-DU, guaranteed in his charge. Dated to the month called 'the oxen plow.' Sasa traveled to the shrine of the new moon at the city of Nina and returned safely; on that occasion sheep hides from grass-fed animals were issued as a disbursement. The record closes with the name of Urukagina, king of Lagash, and a numeral notation, '1,' likely a tally or reference figure.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 wool-sheep: En-DU, shepherd of the wool-sheep — guaranteed (in his charge; na-ba-da-ri). Month: 'the oxen plow' (Gu4-ra2-bi2-mu2). Sasa — when she went to the house of the new-moon (festival) of Nina[k], and was returned safely from Nina — sheep-hides, of grass-fed sheep, were given (ba-ba6, disbursed). Urukagina, king of Lagash. 1.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
2(asz@c) udu siki en-DU sipa udu siki-ka-da na ba-da-ri iti gu4-ra2-bi2-mu2 sa6-sa6 e2 u4-sakar NINA-[na-sze3] e-gen-na-a NINA-na szu-a bi2-gi4 kusz udu u2-rum ba-ba6 URU-KA-gi-na lugal lagasz 1(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 261. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P220911) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-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.