Position in chronology
Nik 1, 289
About this tablet
This is a small, round "cushion-shaped" clay tablet from Girsu (modern Tello) in southern Iraq, dating to the Early Dynastic period (roughly 2400 BCE), when the city was the administrative center of the state of Lagash. It records a delivery of wood — several named types of timber, and possibly grain — brought from an orchard or garden by En-iggal, a well-attested overseer (nubanda) who served the ruling household of Lagash under Lugalanda and Urukagina. The materials appear connected to a ritual "bathing water" purpose and were delivered to a courtyard building, with the transaction dated by a month-name and closed with a delivery count. Tablets like this are the everyday bookkeeping of a temple or palace household economy nearly 4,400 years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This record logs a shipment of wood and produce from an orchard: 3 units of fine barley (or a similarly named grain), 2 units of gul-bu wood, 3 units of worked fir/pine timber, and 19 units of poplar wood. The delivery is dated to the month of Lugal-iribara and is tied to some ritual use of "bathing water." En-iggal, the overseer, brought these goods from the orchard and had them set in place — or officially registered — at the courtyard building. The record closes with a tally marking the delivery as "3," likely a batch or transaction count in the estate's bookkeeping system.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 (units of) šedu10 (fine/choice barley-grain?), 2 gul-bu (a type of tree/wood), 3 u₃-suh₅ (fir/pine-wood), crafted (handmade), 20 less 1 (= 19) asal₂ (poplar-wood) — month: "Lugal-iribara," water for the bathing (ceremony); En-iggal, the overseer, from the orchard/garden set (it) in place / drove in (the peg) — into the house of the courtyard, delivery: 3.
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) sze-du10 2(asz@c) gul-bu 3(asz@c) u3-suh5 szu-dim2 2(u@c) la2 1(asz@c) asal2 iti lugal-iri-bar-ra-ke4 a tu5-a-a en-ig-gal nu-banda3 kiri6-ta na i3-ni-ri e2 ki-sal4-la-ka i3-kux(DU) 3(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — Nik 1, 289. 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 (P222058) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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