Position in chronology
TMH 05, 222
About this tablet
A small, bun-shaped clay tablet from Nippur, broken into two joining pieces (Jena HS 982 + 983), recording a single garment issued by an institutional household in the Early Dynastic period. One length of aktum-cloth passes through a man named Girini, is associated with a person called Lugal-Enlil and with the clothing of someone, and is finally booked as received by the sanga — the chief temple administrator — of the town of Iri-saĝrig. Textile allotments like this are among the commonest records of Sumerian temple economies: cloth was both a wage and a status marker, and the scribe's job was to name who handled it and who was answerable for it.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One aktum-cloth garment, handled by Girini, the man of Sud-ur-sag. The next lines are damaged: a person whose name probably reads Lugal-Enlil appears, something comes 'from' somewhere, and there are two references to someone being clothed or clothing another with the cloth. The record closes with the accountable party: the temple administrator of Iri-saĝrig took the item into his charge.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 aktum-textile (garment), (via) Girini, the man of Sud-ur-sag; [...] ... [Lugal?-En]lil, from [...], [...] was clothed; [...] ... he clothed(?) with it — the temple administrator (sanga) of Iri-saĝrig has taken (it) in charge.
Our translation engine — Opus 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
1(asz@c) aktum2 tug2 giri3-ni lu2# sud3-ur-sag-ra [x] x [lugal?-en]-lil2#-le [...]-ta#? [...] mu4-a [...] x an-na-mu4? sanga iri-sa12-rig7 i3-dab5-ba-a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — TMH 05, 222. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Hilprecht Collection, University of Jena, Germany (P020643) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.