Position in chronology
Nisaba 25, 64
About this tablet
An administrative account from Early Dynastic Ur, some 4,600 years old, listing quantities — probably of grain rations or personnel — assigned to named individuals and officials: a chief craftsman, an overseer, and men with names invoking the moon-god Nanna, patron deity of Ur. The final tallied entry appears to concern 'the people of Ur' collectively. It is a glimpse of the earliest bureaucracy of one of Sumer's greatest cities, written when cuneiform was still close to its pictographic origins.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger. Forty-five units go to Nunuzzi-Nanna; thirty to the chief craftsman; ten-plus (the rest of the number is broken) to Nanna-ursag; four-plus to Aya-zida. A line mentioning a lord or a name with 'EN' is too damaged to read. The reverse continues: sixty units to someone whose name ends in '-ga', sixty to Pa-Enki, and sixty booked under the overseer. After a gap, a large closing figure — apparently 240 — is entered against the people of Ur. The commodity being counted is not stated on what survives, but the pattern is that of a standard ration or personnel account.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) 45 — Nunuzzi-Nanna, 30 — the chief craftsman (kindagal), 10+[n] — Nanna-ursag, [n]+4 — Aya-zida, [...] ... EN ... [...] (reverse) 60 — [...]-ga, 60 — Pa-Enki, 60 — ... (NIG2) of the overseer (kingal) ..., (Break) 240(?) — ... (DUR2) the people of Ur.
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
4(N14@f)# 5(N01@f) , nunuzx(SAL)-zi-nannax(|SZESZ.NA|)# 3(N14@f) , kindagal# 1(N14@f)# n , nannax(|SZESZ.NA|)-ur-sag# n 4(N01@f)# , aya2-zi-da [...] x EN# x [...] 1(N34@f)# , [...] ga 1(N34@f) , pa-en-ki 1(N34@f) , NIG2 kingal# TE# [...] 4(N34@f)#? , DUR2 UN-uri5#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — Nisaba 25, 64. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P449051) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.