Position in chronology
OSP 1, 125
About this tablet
A small personnel roster from the great religious city of Nippur in southern Iraq, written in the Early Dynastic period (mid-third millennium BCE). Each entry counts one man — a herdsman named Lugal-enil, an unnamed scribe, and three other individuals — probably tallied for rations, labor duty, or attachment to a household or temple. Such head-count lists are among the most common documents of early Sumerian bureaucracy, showing how institutions kept track of their people one by one.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a simple headcount: five men, each marked with a tally of one. First comes Lugal-enil, listed as a herdsman; then a scribe, recorded by his title rather than his name; then three more men — Bara-gannudi, Nig-iria-zi, and Nig-lumma. Nothing more is written; the back of the tablet was left blank. It reads like a duty roster or ration checklist from an office in ancient Nippur.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) [1 (man):] Lugal-enil, the herdsman (mu6-sub3); 1 (man): the scribe; 1 (man): Bara-gannudi; 1 (man): Nig-iria-zi; 1 (man): Nig-lumma. (reverse uninscribed)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[1(asz@c)] lugal#:en#-il2 mu6-sub3 1(asz@c) dub-sar 1(asz@c) bara2-gan-nu-di 1(asz@c) nig2-iri-a-zi 1(asz@c) nig2-lum-ma
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — OSP 1, 125. 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: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P010536) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
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