Position in chronology
BuB 2, 05
About this tablet
A brief Old Akkadian (Sargonic) administrative note from Umma, about 2300–2200 BCE. It names one young man, Amar-su son of Muni, along with the foreman and captain he answers to. It also records a phrase that seems to concern getting clay tablets right, and ends with a span of 7 years and 3 months. If the phrase and the figure are read together, the note may record a boy placed to learn scribal work and give his age, which would make it a rare glimpse of scribal training in a working bureaucracy. The wording is terse, though, and that reading is not secure.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One person: Amar-su, son of Muni. His foreman is Nigar, son of E-sza, and his captain is Ur-dumu. He is to be handed over so that the clay tablets are done properly, and he writes, or has been put on the rolls. The note ends with the figure 7 years and 3 months, possibly his age or a length of service.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 Amar-su, son of Muni; foreman: Nigar, son of E-sza; captain: Ur-dumu. To be given (to learn) to make the clay (tablet) correct, he writes / he has been enrolled(?). 7 years, 3 months.
Our translation engine — Opus 5.5. 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(asz@c) amar-su4 dumu mu-ni ugula nigar dumu e2-sza3 nu-banda3 ur-dumu im-e si-sa2 szum2-de3 i3-sar 7(disz@t) mu 3(disz@t) iti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — BuB 2, 05. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (P214925) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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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.