Position in chronology
CUSAS 26, 259
About this tablet
This is a fragment of a small administrative list from Ur in southern Iraq, written in the Old Akkadian period (about 2300–2150 BCE). It records quantities, probably allotments or deliveries, against a series of people. Several of them are identified by where they came from. The most striking entry is a man called Lu-marza, described as 'son of Meluḫḫa'. Meluḫḫa is the Mesopotamian name for the Indus Valley region, so this looks like a person of Indus descent, or a trader linked to that land, living and working at Ur. Other entries mention a man from Lagaš and someone or something connected with the Gutians of the Zagros mountains, so the fragment gives a glimpse of how mixed the population of a Sargonic city was.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The top of the list is lost. What survives is a register of amounts entered against names. An unknown amount goes to the man from Lagaš and another unknown amount to Dudu. E-edinne gets 2 and Išar-aḫi gets 3. An amount is missing for someone whose name begins Amar-. Lu-marza, described as 'son of Meluḫḫa' (the Indus region), gets about two and a half. A further amount is listed under the Gutians or a Gutian. After that the tablet breaks off.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Beginning destroyed) 1. [x]: the man of Lagaš 2. [x]: Dudu 3. 2: E-edinne 4. 3: Išar-aḫi 5. [x]: Amar-x 6. 2?½: Lu-marza, 7. son of Meluḫḫa 8. [x]: Gutium (rest destroyed)
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
[...] [x] lu2# lagasz [x] du-du 2(disz@t) e2-edin-ne2 3(disz@t)# i-sar-a-hi [x] amar-x 2(disz@t)#? 1/2(disz) lu2-mar-za dumu# me-luh-ha [x] gu#-ti#-um# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC) ?) — CUSAS 26, 259. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P467759) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-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.