Position in chronology
Nik 1, 092
About this tablet
This is a small clay tablet from Girsu, part of the huge Early Dynastic III administrative archive of the Bau/Baba temple household at Lagash, to which the 'Nik 1' publication series belongs. It records a modest transaction of barley — measured in two different units and quantities — issued as an interest-bearing loan to a named individual, Ur-igi-ama, under the authority of an official called the nu-banda3 ('inspector' or 'captain'). Such tablets, often no bigger than a thumb, are the bureaucratic backbone of one of the world's earliest large institutional economies, tracking grain moving between granary, officials, and borrowers roughly 4,400 years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Six gur of barley (in the standard gur-saggal measure), credited to Ur-Ebabbar, and three gur of a second grade or type of barley called su-ag — these belong to the group of overseers. The grain was issued as a loan of barley to a man named Ur-igi-ama, handled by the inspector (nu-banda3), who disbursed it to him. The tablet breaks off after the verb, so we don't know if any further detail — a date, a quantity, or another name — originally followed.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine6(gur) barley, gur-saggal measure, (from) Ur-Ebabbar; 3(gur) su-ag(-barley), (they are) the overseers. As a barley loan, to Ur-igi-ama, the inspector (nu-banda3), he gave (it) [...].
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
6(asz@c) sze gur saggal ur-e2-babbar2 3(asz@c) su3-ag2 ugula-me sze ur5-ra-sze3 ur-igi-ama-sze3 nu-banda3 e-ne-szum2 [x]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 092. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (P221861) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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