Position in chronology
Nisaba 25, 40
About this tablet
A badly worn accounting tablet from Early Dynastic Ur, one of the earliest bodies of writing from that city (roughly 2600 BCE or earlier). It is a simple ledger: repeated quantities — pressed into the clay as round and wedge-shaped numeral impressions — each paired with a name or designation, several beginning with the element 'Nin-' ('lady'), common in Sumerian personal names. Though too damaged to identify the commodity being counted, it shows the everyday bookkeeping of an urban institution centuries before literature was written down.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a running tally, most of it lost. Six entries in a row each record the same amount — one large unit and three small ones — assigned to different recipients or items; one is a person or title whose name begins 'Nin-...', another is labeled with the obscure terms BU and NAM2. The list then shifts to smaller amounts: two units for someone, three for another, one unit for a second 'Nin-...' individual, two for someone whose name is broken, and three more for a final lost entry. The beginning and end of the account are broken away, and the commodity being counted is nowhere preserved.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(beginning broken) [...] 1(N22) 3(N01): x [...] 1(N22) 3(N01): x [...] 1(N22) 3(N01): Nin-[...] 1(N22) 3(N01): BU NAM2(?) 1(N22) 3(N01): [...] 1(N22) [3(N01): ...] 2(N01): [...] 3(N01): [...] 1(N01): Nin-[...] 2(N01): x-[...] 3(N01): [...] (remainder broken)
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
[...] 1(N22) 3(N01)# , x [...] 1(N22) 3(N01)# , x [...] 1(N22) 3(N01)# , nin-[...] 1(N22) 3(N01) , BU NAM2#? 1(N22) 3(N01) , [...] 1(N22)# [3(N01) , ...] 2(N01)# , [...] 3(N01)# , [...] 1(N01) , nin-[...] 2(N01) , x-[...] 3(N01)# , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — Nisaba 25, 40. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P449027) — 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.