Position in chronology
TMH 05, 200
About this tablet
A small, badly broken clay tablet from Nippur in southern Iraq, written roughly 2500 BCE, recording a distribution of barley flour. The surviving entries name individuals — Ur-[something], Sa-du, Il-ga, Ab-šega — and repeatedly mark 'their foreman,' the supervisor responsible for each work gang, before a grand total of about six lidga measures. It is a routine ration document: the kind of paperwork that fed the labour crews of an early Sumerian temple or estate, and one of thousands that make up our picture of the world's first bureaucracy.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Flour issued, by team. One share to Ur-[…]; the next entries are lost. Each group is listed under its foreman. Further down: one man, then Sa-du the registrar, then Il-ga, again with the foreman noted. Flour was handed over to Ab-šega. Grand total: about six lidga measures of grain, followed by a count of men that is now broken away. Several lines between the entries are too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) [...] ... [...] 1 (unit): Ur-[...] [...] [...] their foreman [...] [...] 1(?) man [...] Sa-du (the registrar) Il-ga(?) their foreman flour ... Ab-šega was given (out). (total) Grand total: 6(?) [... of barley?] lidga-measures [...] man(?) / men(?)
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[...] x [x] 1(asz@c) ur-x [...] [...] ugula-be6 [...] [x] 1(asz@c)#? lu2 [x] sa12-du5# il2-ga? ugula-be6 dabin x ab-sze3-ga# ba-szum2 szu-nigin2 6(asz@c)#? [x sze?] lid2-ga [x] lu2?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — TMH 05, 200. 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: Hilprecht Collection, University of Jena, Germany (P020614) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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Related sources
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