Position in chronology
WF 079
About this tablet
A small barley account from Šuruppak (modern Fara) in southern Iraq, written around 2600 BCE in the Early Dynastic period — among the oldest readable administrative documents anywhere. A scribe logged barley coming in and going out of an institutional storehouse: deliveries measured in the large 'lidga' unit, and disbursements in barig and ban to named workmen — boatmen like Mes-pada and Ur-Sud, and a reed-mat weaver — with some grain earmarked as malt, presumably for brewing. It is the everyday grain-office paperwork of one of Sumer's earliest cities.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Ledger entry: roughly one lidga of barley (a large measure, about four barig) came in as a delivery. On the outgoing side, 2 barig 2 ban of barley were issued in connection with the boatman Mes-pada; two units of malt were also handled. Ur-Sud, another boatman, received about a barig or more, and a man named Lugal-Enlil appears in the account, though the lines after him are broken away. On the back, the record closes with 2 barig for the reed-mat weaver, also booked as a delivery. In short: a day's grain movements — in and out — at the Šuruppak storehouse.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) [...] 1(?) lidga of barley — delivery. 2 barig 2 ban barley expended, (for) the ... (tagx) of the boatman, Mes-pada. 2 (measures), tagx (of) malt. 1(?) [+ x] barig (for) Ur-Sud, the boatman. Lugal-Enlil. (Break) (reverse) 2 barig (for) the reed-weaver. Delivery.
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
[x] 1(asz@c)#? sze lid2-ga mu-DU 2(barig@c) 2(ban2) sze e3 tagx(LAK492) [lu2]-ma2 mes-pa3 2(asz@c) tagx(LAK492) munu4 1(asz@c)#? [x] (barig@c) ur-sud3 lu2-ma2 lugal#-en-lil2 [...] 2(barig@c) ad#-KID# mu-DU#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — WF 079. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (P011036) — 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.