Position in chronology
Nik 1, 099
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic III administrative tablet from Girsu (ancient Lagash), part of the Nikolski I (Nik 1) archive now in the Hermitage. It records a barley deficit — an outstanding balance still owed — attributed to a man named Ur-šedalumma, apparently a Šubur-worker under the authority of an overseer (nu-banda3). Rather than being paid off, the debt was formally transferred from one account record to another, with the tablet itself noted as having been carried along with the transaction. Texts like this are the bookkeeping backbone of the great Lagash temple households, showing how grain debts were tracked, reassigned, and re-recorded across officials.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
There's a barley shortfall on the books: still owed is roughly 2 gur, 1 barig and 1 ban2 of grain (measured by the standard 'head' gur), charged to a man called Ur-šedalumma, a Šubur-worker under the overseer's supervision. This unpaid balance wasn't cleared — it was simply rolled over: the debt was transferred to another account, the tablet recording it was carried along with the transfer, and the amount (5) was entered onto his running account. In short, a grain debt gets reassigned from one ledger entry to the next rather than settled.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineDeficit: [x +] 2 gur, 1 barig, 1 ban2 barley, by the gur-saggal ("head"-gur) standard — Ur-šedalumma, the Šubur, the overseer (nu-banda3). The barley was transferred (as an outstanding debt); the tablet (record) was carried over with it. It was placed on his account (debt-ledger): 5.
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
la2-a [x] 2(asz@c) 1(barig@c) 1(ban2@c) sze gur saggal ur-sze-da-lum-ma szubur nu-banda3 sze e-bala-a dub e-da-bala gu2-na e-ne2-gar 5(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 099. 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 (P221868) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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