Nik 1, 282

~2400 BCE·Early Dynastic·P222051

About this tablet

This small clay tablet from Girsu (ancient Tello) is one of dozens of terse account records from the household archive of Bara-namtara, wife of Lugalanda, ruler (ensi2) of the city-state of Lagash in the mid-24th century BCE. It tallies quantities of wooden containers and measured amounts of poplar and fruit-wood destined for the wife of the ruler of the rival city of Adab — part of a documented pattern of gift exchange between elite women of different Sumerian city-states. Such tablets, some of the earliest detailed bureaucratic records in existence, reveal how palace households tracked wood, timber products, and diplomatic gifts down to individual measures.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

This is a short receipt or delivery note: 6 containers of white poplar-wood, 5 containers of a plant or wood called sze-du10, 61 measures of poplar timber, and 240 measures of apple-wood are recorded as going to the wife of the governor of Adab. The sender is named as Bara-namtara — the well-known wife of Lugalanda, ruler of Lagash — who evidently sent this shipment of wood products as part of an exchange between the two royal households.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

6 ma-dul10 (containers) of white mes-wood, 5 ma-dul10 of sze-du10, 61 kab2-ku (measures) of poplar (ildag4), 240 kab2-ku (measures) of apple-wood (haszhur): (for) the wife of the ensi2 of Adab — (from) Bara-namtara.

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

6(asz@c) ma-dul10 mes babbar2
5(asz@c) ma-dul10 sze-du10
1(gesz2@c) 1(asz@c) kab2-ku ildag4
4(gesz2@c) kab2-ku haszhur
dam ensi2
adab-ka-ke4
bara2-nam-tar-ra

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 282. 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 (P222051) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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