Position in chronology
WF 142
About this tablet
An administrative allocation tablet from ancient Šuruppak (modern Fara, southern Iraq), dated to roughly 2600–2400 BCE. It records the distribution of at least two types of goods — possibly writing implements, given the tablet's thematic classification — to three ranked groups of recipients: first to a city governor and a named lord in very large quantities, then in smaller amounts to a 'Chief of Dilmun,' Subarian laborers, a barber, and a temple administrator, and finally to the chief's son and two further individuals. The repeated reference to a 'Chief of Dilmun' and his son is historically notable, suggesting that officials connected to the Gulf island trading network (likely the islands now forming Bahrain) held recognized positions within Šuruppak's institutional hierarchy around 2500 BCE. The structured layout — quantity entries followed by recipient lists — is the standard bookkeeping format of the Fara scribal tradition.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Twelve hundred units of the first commodity (si-NUxU) and twelve hundred units of the second commodity go to the city governor's office and to Lord Zi-u4-di. Sixty units of the first commodity are distributed among the Chief of Dilmun, the Subarian workers, the barber, and the temple administrator. A final allocation of ninety units of the same commodity goes to the son of the Chief of Dilmun, a man named GAR-HU-DUR2-BU, and a kinda2-worker. The exact nature of the goods being distributed is not yet fully established.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1,200 [units of] si-|NUxU| 1,200 [units of] |(TIR&TIR)xU2| — [for] ensi-GAR — [and] lord Zi-u4-di 60 [units of] si-|NUxU| — [for] the Chief of Dilmun — [and] the Subarians (dependent workers) — [and] the barber — [and] the temple administrator of GAR 90 [units of] si-|NUxU| — [for] the son of the Chief of Dilmun — [and] GAR-HU-DUR2-BU — [and] the kinda2-worker
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
2(gesz'u@c) si-|NUxU| 2(gesz'u@c) |(TIR&TIR)xU2| ensi2-GAR en zi-u4-di 1(gesz2@c) si-|NUxU| gal-dilmun szubur szu-i sanga-GAR 1(gesz2@c) 3(u@c) si-|NUxU| dumu gal-dilmun GAR-HU-DUR2-BU kinda2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — WF 142. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (P011100) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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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.