Position in chronology
Nisaba 25, 33
About this tablet
An administrative account from Early Dynastic Ur, in southern Iraq, recording small disbursements of foodstuffs — beer, bread, milk(?) and jars — to named individuals, among them a donkey herdsman, a cupbearer, and men called Ur-ga and Sag-ku. It is the everyday paperwork of a household or temple economy nearly 4,500 years ago, showing how rations and provisions were tallied against specific people. The tablet is worn and broken, so several entries survive only as bare numbers.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ration list. The donkey herdsman got a quantity of milk (the number is lost). Someone named Lugal-... received four jars of barley beer. After a damaged entry, Ur-ga received one loaf of bread and one jar. Three units — noted as a remainder — went to the cupbearer as barley and bread for the daughter. Then two barley loaves, three of something now lost, and one jar for Sag-ku. The last three entries each record a single unit, but what was issued and to whom is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) [n (units of)] milk(?) — the donkey herdsman; 4 (jars of) barley beer — Lugal-[...]; [...] DIN; 1 (loaf of) bread, 1 jar — Ur-ga; 3 — remainder(?), the cupbearer: barley (and) bread of the daughter; 2 — bread (of) barley(?); 3 [...]; 1 jar — Sag-ku; 1 [...]; 1 [...]; 1 [...].
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
[n] ga sipa-ansze 4(N01@f) , kasz sze lugal#-[...] [...] DIN 1(N01@f) , ninda 1(N01@f) , dug ur-ga 3(N01@f) , TAK4 sagix(|SILA3.DU8|) sze# ninda dumu-munus 2(N01@f) , ninda# sze#? 3(N01@f) [...] 1(N01@f) , dug sag-ku5#! 1(N01@f) [...] 1(N01@f) [...] 1(N01@f) [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — Nisaba 25, 33. 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: British Museum, London, UK (P449020) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.