Position in chronology
DP 287
About this tablet
This is an administrative tablet from Girsu (ancient Lagash), one of thousands kept by the palace household of the ruling family in the late Early Dynastic period, roughly the 24th century BCE. It records deliveries of dried fish — measured in units called tar and ubi, plus a smaller batch called kimu — brought as offerings, some to an official named Lugal-ša and some designated 'first fruits' associated with a fish-creel. The transaction is overseen by En-iggal, a well-documented inspector (nubanda) who appears across many Lagash economic texts of this era, and is dated by a local festival month sacred to the goddess Nanše and tied to a building called the ebar-house of Bilgames (Gilgamesh). Tablets like this one give historians a remarkably granular view of temple and household economy — who supplied what, to whom, and when — in one of the world's earliest bureaucracies.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
An unspecified quantity of tar-fish and 480 units of ubi-fish were weighed out and delivered to the offering table on behalf of Lugal-ša. Separately, 20 tar-fish, 420 ubi-fish, and 60 kimu-fish were set aside as a first-fruits offering — fish taken from the fish-creel. The transaction was handled by En-iggal, the inspector, during the month of the malt-eating festival of the goddess Nanše. The delivery is linked to the ebar-house built for Bilgames (Gilgamesh), and the whole record is dated to year 2.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[x] tar-fish, 8(gešʼ2) (480) ubi-fish — (for) Lugal-ša, weighed out (and) brought forth for the offering table. 20 tar-fish, 7(gešʼ2) (420) ubi-fish, 60 kimu-fish — (as) first-fruit offering (nesaĝ): it is fish of the dusu-basket (creel). En-iggal, the inspector (nubanda). Month: "Festival of malt-consumption" of (the goddess) Nanše. The ebar-house of Bilgames (Gilgameš) — built (it) — delivered. Year 2.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 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.
Transliteration
[x] tar 8(gesz2@c) ubi lugal-sza3 banszur la2-a e3-a-am6 2(u@c) tar 7(gesz2@c) ubi 1(gesz2@c) ki-mu11 ne-sag ku6 dusu-kam en-ig-gal nu-banda3 [iti] ezem munu4 gu7 nansze-ka e2 e2-bar bil3-aga3-mes-ka du3-a [i3]-kux(DU) 2(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 287. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P220937) — 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.