Position in chronology
FTP 092
About this tablet
An accounting tablet from the ancient Sumerian city of Šuruppak (modern Fara), written around 2600–2500 BCE — one of the oldest administrative archives in the world. A scribe is recording measured amounts of barley issued to named individuals, including a 'foreman of the courtyard,' one of the supervisory officials in the city's institutional workforce. Tablets like this show that long before literature or law codes, writing served the daily bookkeeping of rations and personnel in an early city-state. The piece is badly worn, but roughly a dozen entries survive.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a barley payout list. Ur-lugal-DU gets 2 barig (roughly 120 liters); Lugal-na-riga's amount is lost; a line is broken; Di-Utu appears next with his quantity missing. Then: about 90 liters for Sag-A-DU-ba-sum, 160 for Lu-AB-DU-GA, 80 for Enlil-pa of the courtyard, 80 for a man whose name is broken. After another damaged entry, Kuda — the foreman of the courtyard — gets a small 20-liter allotment. The list closes with 180 liters of barley for Ur-iggal, 120 for U-RU-..., and at least 60 for a man named Ur-something. Several names and amounts are lost to damage.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) 2 barig (of barley): Ur-lugal-DU, [...] Lugal-na-riga, [... broken line ...] [...] Di-Utu, 1 barig 3 ban: [Sag]-A-DU-ba-sum(?), 2 barig 4 ban: Lu-AB-DU-GA, 1 barig 2 ban: Enlil-pa(?), of the courtyard (KISAL), 1 barig 2 ban(?): AB-[...], [... broken line ...] [...] ... KA ..., 2 ban: Kuda, the foreman of the courtyard. 3 barig of barley: Ur-iggal(?), 2 barig: U-RU-[...], [x +] 1 barig: Ur-[...].
Our translation engine — Fable 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(barig@c) ur#-lugal-DU#? [...] lugal#-na#-[ri]-ga# [...] [...] di-utu 1(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) [sag]-[A]-DU#?-ba#?-sum 2(barig@c) 4(ban2@c) lu2-AB-DU-GA2# 1(barig@c) 2(ban2@c) en-lil2-pa3#? KISAL# 1(barig@c) 2(ban2@c)? AB# [...] [...] [x] x KA x 2(ban2@c) ku5-da ugula-KISAL 3(barig@c) sze ur-ig-[gal?] 2(barig@c) u2-RU-[x] [x] 1(barig@c)# ur-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — FTP 092. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P222168) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.