Position in chronology
DP 036
About this tablet
A small Early Dynastic account tablet, now in the Louvre (AO 13244), published long ago as DP 36. It tallies a commodity written with the sign SI in two alternating grades — plain SI, measured out in capacity units with ban2 sub-measures, and a variety marked SI-NUxU counted by the piece and graded 'prime' — running from a couple of items up to lots of 105 and 118. The closing lines record that the goods were received, apparently by a fisherman and/or a man named Baza. It is ordinary institutional bookkeeping: the kind of receipt that a temple or palace storehouse in southern Iraq generated by the hundreds in the mid-third millennium BCE.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The ledger runs down a series of paired entries: 2 large SI; 40 prime SI-NUxU; 7 units and 4 ban2 of SI; 105 prime SI-NUxU; another 7 units and 4 ban2; 51 prime; 7 units and 2 ban2; 42 prime; 23 SI; and finally 118 prime — written, in the old style, as 'two sixties less two.' At the bottom the account is closed out: the fisherman (the title is damaged) took delivery, and the last line names the commodity again with what appears to be the name Baza. The eroded obverse leaves part of the record unreadable.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 large si (si gal-gal) 40 si-NUxU, prime (sag) 7 (units), 4 ban2 of si 105 si-NUxU, prime 7 (units), 4 ban2 of si 51 si-NUxU, prime 7 (units), 2 ban2 of si 42 si-NUxU, prime 23 si 118 (120 minus 2) si-NUxU, prime the fisherman(?) (šu-[ku6]) has received (šu ba-ti). si — Baza(?).
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
2(asz@c) si gal-gal 4(u@c) si-|NUxU| sag 7(asz@c) 4(ban2@c) si 1(gesz2@c)! 4(u@c) 5(asz@c) si-|NUxU| sag 7(asz@c) 4(ban2@c)# si 5(u@c) 1(asz@c) si-|NUxU| sag 7(asz@c) 2(ban2@c) si 4(u@c) 2(asz@c) si-|NUxU| sag 2(u@c) 3(asz@c) si 2(gesz2@c@d) la2 2(asz@c) si-|NUxU| sag szu-[ku6?] szu# ba-ti#! si ba-za#?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — DP 036. 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: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P010053) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.