Position in chronology
RTC 007
About this tablet
An accounting tablet from the Sumerian city of Girsu, written in the Early Dynastic period (mid-third millennium BCE) — among the older readable economic documents from that site. A temple or palace storehouse clerk lists issues of flour, malt, garlic-flavored flour, and dark bread, earmarked for specific recipients: the shrine of Tirash, the god Enki, the ruler ('lugal'), and An-ki. It is a snapshot of how a Sumerian institution provisioned both its gods and its king from the same larder, in the terse shorthand of the world's earliest bookkeepers.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A storehouse issue slip: one measure of flour (checked out), twenty liters of garlic flour, and ten measures of crushed barley go to the Tirash shrine. One barig of malt with hal-hal flour and one measure of crushed flour are set aside for the god Enki. The king receives a barig of dark bread, ten measures of dark garlic flour, and more dark bread. Eighty liters of barley flour and one measure of top-quality flour go to An-ki, plus one barig of sag-bread. No date, no witnesses — just the quantities and who gets them.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 (unit) of flour, measured(?); 20 sila of garlic-flour; 10 (units) of crushed barley: (for) Tirash. 1 barig of malt (and) hal-hal flour; 1 (unit) of crushed(?) flour: (for) Enki. 1 barig of black bread (of) flour; 10 (units) of black flour (with) garlic; (and) black bread: (for) the king. 80 sila of barley flour; 1 (unit) of fine-quality flour: (for) An-ki. 1 barig of sag-bread.
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
1(asz@c) zi3@t ag2#? 2(u@c) sila3 zi3@t szum 1(u@c) sze naga4 ti-ra-asz2 1(barig@c) munu4 zi3 hal-hal 1(asz@c)# zi3@t naga4? en-ki 1(barig@c) ninda gi6 zi3@t 1(u@c) zi3@t gi6 szum ninda gi6 lugal 1(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) sze zi3@t sila3 1(asz@c) zi3@t sag8 an-ki 1(barig@c) NINDA@g-sag
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — RTC 007. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P010561) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.