Position in chronology
WF 094
About this tablet
An administrative roster from Šuruppak (modern Fara), written around 2500 BCE, counting work-gangs of able-bodied men contributed by the great cities of Sumer — Uruk, Adab, Nippur, Lagash, Šuruppak itself, and Umma — and summing them as men 'of Kiengi', the Sumerians' own name for their land. It is one of the earliest documents to treat the Sumerian city-states as a single collective, and has been cited as evidence for an early league or alliance of cities cooperating on shared labor projects centuries before any territorial kingdom existed.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A headcount of workmen by city: 122 men stationed at Uruk, 215 from Adab, 74 from Nippur, 110 from Lagash, 66 from Šuruppak, and 128 from Umma. The clerk then closes the account on the back of the tablet with a grand total — 650 laborers, written the Sumerian way as 'six hundred and sixty less ten' — describing them all together as the men stationed of Kiengi, that is, of Sumer itself. In effect: a joint labor levy drawn from six of the great cities of the land, tallied on one sheet.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) 122 (2×60 + 2) able-bodied laborers, men stationed at Uruk; 215 (3×60 + 35) — Adab; 74 (1×60 + 14) — Nippur; 110 (1×60 + 50) — Lagash; 66 (1×60 + 6) — Šuruppak; 128 (2×60 + 8) — Umma. (reverse) Grand total: 650 (1×600 + 1×60, less 10) able-bodied laborers, men stationed of Kiengi (the land of Sumer).
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
2(gesz2@c) 2(asz@c) gurusz lu2 durun unug 3(gesz2@c) 3(u@c) 5(asz@c) adab 1(gesz2@c) 1(u@c) 4(asz@c) nibru 1(gesz2@c) 5(u@c) lagaszx(|NU11.BUR.MUSZEN|) 1(gesz2@c) 6(asz@c) szuruppak 2(gesz2@c) 8(asz@c) umma an-sze3-gu2 1(gesz'u@c) 1(gesz2@c) la2 1(u@c) gurusz lu2 durun ki-en-gi
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — WF 094. 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 (P011051) — 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
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