Position in chronology
Fs Krecher 349-350 17
About this tablet
A small administrative allocation list from Early Dynastic Šuruppak (modern Fara, southern Iraq), dating to roughly 2600–2500 BCE. It records quantities — most likely rations of grain or bread — distributed to five named individuals, one of whom holds the title of foreman. These terse lists are the workaday paperwork of the Sumerian institutional economy: a scribe noting who gets how much, under whose authority, so nothing slips through the cracks. The opening line is too damaged to reconstruct, but what survives is legible and coherent.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The opening line is too broken to read. After that, the allocations are clear: Hu-bu7 receives 3 units; Ur-Nanshe receives 1; a man named Bilx-ga-UL4, the local foreman, receives 1; Mes-ukken receives half a unit; and Lugal-a2-mah receives 2. A straightforward ledger entry — someone tracking who gets what from the institutional stores.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[n?] AN# [x] [x?] 3: Hu-bu7 1: Ur-Nanshe 1: Bilx-ga-UL4, foreman ½: Mes-ukken 2: Lugal-a2-mah
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. 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
n? AN# x x? 3(disz@t) hu-bu7# 1(disz@t) ur-nansze 1(disz@t) bilx(|PAP.GESZ.BIL|)-ga-UL4 ugula 1/2(disz@t) mes-ukken 2(disz@t) lugal-a2!(DA)-mah2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC) ?) — Fs Krecher 349-350 17. 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: Ist Š 0696 (Arkeoloji Müzeleri, Istanbul, Turkey) — from Šuruppak (mod. Fara) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P480578). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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Related sources
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