Position in chronology
Nik 1, 007
About this tablet
This small, rounded clay tablet from Girsu (ancient Tello) belongs to a well-known Early Dynastic IIIb administrative genre: death lists for the female workers (geme2) attached to the great temple household of the goddess Baba, one of the largest institutional estates in the city-state of Lagash. Such tablets were kept by the temple's scribes to track the workforce roster, noting when laborers died or were transferred elsewhere — here, one worker is recorded as having been 'taken' by the city's ruler (ensi2). It is a stark, matter-of-fact piece of bureaucratic bookkeeping, listing human beings the way other tablets list grain or livestock, and it offers a rare glimpse into the size and mortality of a Sumerian temple labor force 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 is a workforce record from the Baba temple estate at Girsu. It notes that three women — Lugal-da-nu-me-a, Abad-mu, and Lugal-dingir-mu — have died, and that a fourth, Dingir-kalga, was taken away by the city ruler. All four are logged as belonging to the roster of female workers of the Baba household. The tablet then records two more deaths, of Muni-kalama and E-ta-e11, women who belonged instead to the work-gang of the overseer Tar-sirsira. The final line carries a numeral notation, likely a subtotal, but it is too damaged to read with certainty.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 (person): Lugal-da-nu-me-a 1 (person): A-bad-mu 1 (person): Lugal-dingir-mu They died. 1 (person): Dingir-kalga — the ruler (ensi2) took (him) away. They are the female workers of Baba. 1 (person): Muni-kalama 1 (person): E-ta-e11 They died. They are the female workers of Tar-sirsira. 1(broken numeral sign)?
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
1(asz@c) lugal-da-nu-me-a 1(asz@c) a-bad3-mu 1(asz@c) lugal-dingir-mu ba-ug7-ge-esz2 1(asz@c) dingir-kal-ga ensi2-ke4 ba-de6 geme2-ba-ba6-ka-me 1(asz@c) mu-ni-kalam-ma 1(asz@c) e-ta-e11 ba-ug7-ge geme2-tar-sir2-sir2-ra-ka-me 1(|ASZxDISZ@t|)?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 007. 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: State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (P221714) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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