Position in chronology
Nik 1, 078
About this tablet
This is a small clay administrative tablet from Girsu (modern Tello), dating to the Early Dynastic period, roughly the mid-third millennium BCE — among the very oldest surviving bureaucratic paperwork from Mesopotamia. It records a disbursement of barley: part of it fed to donkeys, part connected to a garment allotment and to wages for a man named Anekura, handled by a plowman, and directed toward a plot called the 'small field of Girgir-Girgir.' Texts like this belonged to the vast archive of the temple household of the goddess Baba at Girsu, which tracked grain, labor, textiles, and land down to remarkably fine detail.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The account records a barley disbursement of 3 gur, 1 barig, and 2 ban2, measured by the standard (saggal) measure. Some of this barley was fodder given to the donkeys. Another portion was tied to the si-ga placement of a garment, and to a wage payment credited to a man named Anekura. A plowman was responsible for the transaction, which concerned the small field belonging to (or called) Girgir-Girgir. The barley was delivered or carried out, with a final notation of the number six, whose exact function in this account is not fully clear.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 gur, 1 barig, 2 ban2 barley (measured by) the saggal (standard measure) — barley, donkey fodder (consumed by the donkeys) — for the si-ga placement of the tugx-garment — wage(-portion) of Anekura — (by) the plowman — for the small field of Girgir-Girgir — was delivered/carried: 6.
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
3(asz@c) 1(barig@c) 2(ban2@c) sze gur saggal sze ansze gu7 tugx(LAK483) si-ga-sze3 a2-ne2-kur-ra sag-apin-ke4 GAN2 GIR2@g-GIR2@g tur-sze3 ba-de6 6(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 078. 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 (P221847) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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