Position in chronology
WF 092
About this tablet
An administrative roster from the city of Šuruppak (modern Fara), written around 2600 BCE, counting 670 workmen or soldiers drawn from six great cities of Sumer — Uruk, Adab, Nippur, Lagash, Šuruppak itself, and Umma. Strikingly, it names 'Kiengi', the Sumerians' own word for their land, making it one of the earliest documents to treat these rival city-states as a single collective. Scholars see here evidence of an early league or amphictyony of Sumerian cities pooling manpower — the bureaucratic footprint of the first inter-city cooperation in recorded history.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A headcount of men stationed on duty, city by city: 182 from Uruk, 192 from Adab, 94 from Nippur, 60 from Lagash, 56 from Šuruppak, and 86 from Umma — all of them men of Kiengi, the land of Sumer. An official named DU-DU handed them over. The back of the tablet gives the grand total: 670 able-bodied men stationed in place. The arithmetic checks out exactly.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) 182 (3×60+2) able-bodied men — Uruk; 192 (3×60+12) — Adab; 94 (1×60+34) — Nippur; 60 (1×60) — Lagash; 56 — Šuruppak; 86 (1×60+26) — Umma: men who are stationed (settled in place), (of) Kiengi (Sumer). DU-DU handed (them) over. (reverse) Total: 670 (1×600 + 1×60 + 10) able-bodied men, men who are stationed.
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
3(gesz2@c) 2(asz@c) gurusz unu 3(gesz2@c) 1(u@c) 2(asz@c) adab 1(gesz2@c) 3(u@c) 4(asz@c) nibru 1(gesz2@c) lagaszx(|NU11.BUR.LA.MUSZEN|) 5(u@c) 6(asz@c) szuruppak 1(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) 6(asz@c) umma lu2 ba-durunx(|DUR2&DUR2|) ki-en-gi DU-DU szu szum2 szu-nigin2 1(gesz'u@c) 1(gesz2@c) 1(u@c) gurusz lu2 ba-durunx(|DUR2&DUR2|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — WF 092. 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: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (P011049) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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