DP 307

~2400 BCE·Early Dynastic·P220957

Translation — curated editorial

Editorial

Experimental

Editorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P220957.

Translation · AI engine

read from photo

Medium confidence

20 gir-fish, for pouring/delivery; 10 agargara-fish, for pouring/delivery; Month: 'the granary is opened'; To be processed as ku6-hab2 (dried/salted fish): Amar-giri, the cook — En-iggal, the overseer, gave (it) to him. Fish (are) the property of Ba-ba (goddess Baba), (she is) the good and beautiful (one), wife of Uru-KA-gina, king of Lagash. [Date:] 4th (year).

8 uncertain terms ↓

gir — A type of fish in Lagash administrative texts; the exact species is unknown. Sometimes read as 'knife-fish' by association with the sign's later meaning, but in this context it is simply a fish commodity name.
agargara — Another fish type attested in Lagash texts; species unknown. The name may be onomatopoeic or descriptive of the fish's appearance.
a-de2 / ak-de3 — Literally 'to pour' or 'for pouring'; in fish-processing contexts this likely refers to a preparatory step such as brining or delivering into a vat. The exact process is uncertain.
ku6-hab2 — A category of processed fish, likely dried or salted; 'hab2' may carry a sense of dryness or a specific curing method. Not fully certain.
iti guru7-im-du8-a-a — Month name literally meaning 'the month when the granary is opened/uncovered'; one of the months attested in the Early Dynastic Lagash calendar.
URU-KA-gi-na — The ruler conventionally called Uruinimgina or Urukagina; the exact reading of the KA sign in this royal name is debated (some read it as 'inim' = 'word/command', giving Uruinimgina). The conventional anglicised form Urukagina is used here.
4(|ASZxDISZ@t|) — A regnal year notation, '4th year' of Uruinimgina's reign; the sign is a complex numeral notation specific to this dating convention.
u2-rum — Meaning 'property of' or 'belonging to'; used to designate institutional ownership, here indicating the fish belong to the goddess Baba's household.

Reasoning ↓

The photograph shows a small, well-preserved lenticular clay tablet with clear cuneiform wedge impressions on the obverse (main face visible in the upper central image). The tablet is displayed in five views: obverse, reverse, and three edges. The museum number AO 13515 is visible in purple ink on the left edge. On the obverse, the grid divisions and sign groups are clearly visible, though at this resolution individual sign readings require comparison with the transliteration. The sign clusters in the upper left column correspond plausibly to numerical notations (the large quantities: 2(gesz'u) = 20, 1(gesz'u) = 10) followed by commodity names. The month name and personal names (Amar-giri, En-iggal) are visible in the middle and lower rows as denser sign clusters, broadly consistent with the transliteration. The reverse (bottom large image) shows additional sign rows including what appear to be the royal name and title entries for Uruinimgina/Uru-KA-gina, consistent with the transliteration's final lines. The sign 4(|ASZxDISZ@t|) at the end is a regnal year notation. The tablet's attribution to the household of Baba, wife of Uruinimgina, is well-supported by parallel Girsu texts of this period (Deimel, Fara; Bauer, Altsumerische Wirtschaftstexte). The reading 'ku6-hab2' as a type of dried or preserved fish is standard in Lagash corpus texts. The name 'Uru-KA-gina' follows the conventional rendering of this ruler; the reading 'Uruinimgina' is also used by some scholars but the sign sequence KA-gi-na supports 'Urukagina' as historically conventional. Cannot fully verify every individual sign from the photo at this resolution, particularly the month name and the fish-type agargara.

Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 16, 2026 · 2402 in / 1387 out tokens

Transliteration

2(gesz'u@c) gir a-de2
1(gesz'u@c) agargara a-de2
iti guru7-im-du8-a-a
ku6-hab2-sze3 ak-de3
amar-giri16
muhaldim-ra
en-ig-gal
nu-banda3
e-na-szum2
ku6 u2-rum
ba-ba6
sa6-sa6
dam URU-KA-gi-na
lugal
lagasz-ka 4(|ASZxDISZ@t|)

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — DP 307. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P220957) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P220957..

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