Position in chronology
TSA 29
About this tablet
A small accounting tablet from Girsu (modern Tello) in southern Iraq, written around 2350 BCE in the household administration of the ruler's wife at Lagash. It records barley drawn from four different storage vessels and measures in a courtyard storeroom and handed over by En-iggal — the chief overseer of that estate, a man attested in hundreds of these tablets — to Lugal-pa'e, the estate's swineherd, presumably as feed for the temple pigs. The last sign dates it to the sixth regnal year of the ruling king. It is a perfectly ordinary receipt, and that is exactly why it matters: this archive is one of the fullest pictures we have of how a Sumerian institutional household actually ran.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Barley issued from the courtyard store: 1 measure from Har-ḫada's jar, 7 from Nig-šu's jar, 8 held in the ban-measure, 4 of the saḫar-gi grade, plus 4 more to be set aside. En-iggal, the overseer, handed the whole lot over to Lugal-pa'e, the pig-keeper. Year 6.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 (gur) fine barley, (from) the ma-dul vessel of Har-ḫada; 7 (gur) fine barley, (from) the ma-dul vessel of Nig-šu; 8 (gur) fine barley, (in) the ban-measure; 4 (gur) fine barley, (of) saḫar-gi; 4 (gur) to be set aside — from the storehouse of the courtyard. En-iggal, the overseer, to Lugal-pa'e, the swineherd, gave it. (Year) 6.
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) sze-<du10> ma-dul10 har-ha-da-ka 7(asz@c) sze-du10 ma-dul10 nig2-szu-ka 8(asz@c) sze-du10 ban 4(asz@c) sze-du10 sahar-gi 4(asz@c) ga2-ga2-de3 e2 ki-sal4-la-ta en-ig-gal nu-banda3 lugal-pa-e3 sipa szah2-ra e-na-szum2 6(|ASZxDISZ@t|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — TSA 29. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels, Belgium (P221390) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
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.