Position in chronology
Nik 1, 255
About this tablet
This is a small administrative tablet from the archives of the Presargonic city-state of Lagash (modern Tello), dated to the reign of the reformist ruler Urukagina, around 2350 BCE. It records an official inspection ('gurum2') — most likely a tally of livestock, personnel, or agricultural workers such as plowmen — carried out at the house of a land-surveyor, one of thousands of routine bureaucratic checks that kept the temple-and-palace economy of Lagash running. Such texts, often just a few lines long, are the mundane paperwork behind a famous king better remembered for his social reform edicts.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The record opens with a quantity of 25 of something (the commodity is lost), followed by the name Ur-gešbara(e), then a second entry of 1 unit under a person named Lugal-inim-[...], and a note of young goats — but the text breaks off here for several lines. When it resumes, it states that an inspection was carried out involving the plowman(s), at the house of the surveyor (literally 'the man of the measuring-rope'). The tablet closes with the standard dating formula: this took place under Urukagina, king of Lagash, in the fifth year.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine25 [...] Ur-gešbara(e), 1(?) [...] Lugal-inim-[...], kid(s) [...] [...] [...] [...] with the plowman(s), at the house of the man of the measuring-rope (the surveyor), its inspection was carried out. Urukagina, king, of Lagash. Year 5.
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
2(u@c) 5(asz@c) [...] ur-gesz-bar-e3# 1(asz@c)#? [... lugal?]-inim [x] masz [...] [...] [...] [...] sag-apin-da e2 lu2 esz2-gid2-ka-ka gurum2-bi e-da-ak URU-KA-gi-na lugal lagasz 5(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 255. 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 (P222024) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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Related sources
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