Position in chronology
Nisaba 25, 10
About this tablet
A small, badly worn administrative tablet from Early Dynastic Ur, one of the oldest cities of southern Iraq, written well before 2300 BCE. What survives is a short list: a few personal names — one apparently 'Amar-e-gibil' ('calf of the new house') — followed by entries counted 'one' each, ending with a line for the city governor (ensi). It is the everyday bookkeeping of one of the world's first urban bureaucracies, recording items or persons assigned to named individuals and officials, though erosion has taken most of the detail.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a short tally, most of it worn away. The readable part lists a few names — one broken name ending in '...ur-a', a man called Pabilga, and another apparently named Amar-e-gibil — followed by counted entries: one of something now lost, one of an item written with the sign SI (perhaps a horn or a measured commodity), and one entry for the governor. Whatever was being distributed or accounted, each named party received or was charged with a single unit. The reverse of the tablet carries no legible text.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) [...] SAR [...] UR(?)-A [Pa]-bilga(?) [...] SI-A(?) [Amar(?)]-e-gibil 1 [...] 1 ... SI(?) [1(?)] the governor (ensi) (remainder, including reverse, uninscribed or effaced)
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
[...] SAR [...] UR#? A [pa]-bilx(|NE.PAP.UET2_377|)#-[ga?] [...] SI-A#? [amar?]-e2#?-gibil 1(N01) [...] 1(N01) , SI#? [1(N01)?] ensix(|PA.SI|)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — Nisaba 25, 10. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P448997) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
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.