Position in chronology
MVN 03, 009
About this tablet
This is a small, badly worn clay tablet fragment from Girsu (modern Tello) recording the survey or allotment of agricultural fields, using the standard Early Dynastic Sumerian formula 'its area is...' followed by measurements in bur3, eše3, iku (land-area units) and barig/ban2/sar (seed or capacity measures). A man named Ur-šul appears, likely a plot-holder or the official responsible for the parcel, and the text closes by locating one field 'adjoining the Imnun (canal), at Akita' — the kind of precise topographic anchor scribes used to distinguish one field from its neighbors. Texts like this belonged to the vast bureaucratic apparatus of the Lagash-Girsu state, which tracked land, labor, and grain with remarkable precision nearly 4,500 years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This record lists the size of one field as 1 bur3, 1 eše3, and 4 iku — roughly a mid-sized plot by the standards of the day — followed by a damaged entry mentioning some kind of property or goods (nig-en-na) that is now lost to a break in the tablet. The next couple of lines are too broken to read. Then comes a note about three reeds and something called 'matching heads,' followed by another field measurement of 1 barig, 1 ban2, and 30 sar, and yet another field of 1 barig tied to a term written šag-TAR. After a fully illegible line, the tablet names a man called Ur-šul, and closes by pinning the location: the field lies next to the Imnun watercourse, in the place called Akita.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineIts area: 1 bur3, 1 eše3, 4 iku, (of) iku(-measure). [...the] nig₂-en-na(-goods) [...] ... [...] ... [...] ... 3 reeds(?) ... matching/aligned heads (sag-sa2) Its area: 1 barig, 1 ban2, ... 30 sar ... its area: 1 barig, šag-TAR ... (illegible) Ur-šul adjoining (the watercourse) Imnun, at Akita.
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
GAN2#-bi 1(bur3@c) 1(esze3@c) 4(iku@c) iku [... nig2]-en#-na [...] x [...] x [...] x 3(disz@t) gi x sag-sa2 GAN2-bi# 1(barig@c) 1(ban2@c) x 3(u@c) sar# x [...] GAN2-bi# 1(barig@c)# sza3-TAR x x x ur#-szul us2 im-nun a-ki-ta-ka#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — MVN 03, 009. This record has no stored scholarly English translation; the existence of published translations has not been checked; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P222192) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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