Position in chronology
Kress 150
About this tablet
A small accounting tablet from the Old Akkadian period (around 2300 BCE), probably from the city of Umma in southern Iraq. It tallies rams, sheep, and young goats charged to half a dozen named individuals, notes that a shepherd named Nita-tur drove the animals off, and records that some were consumed — eaten or disbursed — by a man called Dudu. It is the routine paperwork of ancient herd management: who held which animals, and what became of them.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a livestock ledger. Four rams(?) are booked to Lugal-namgusu; four young goats to Ur-nagar; one each to Ur-Inanna and Dingir-ta; two to Lugal-entarsu; and four sheep to someone whose name is too damaged to read. Nita-tur, the shepherd, drove the animals away. One more sheep is listed under a man whose name begins Ur-. The regular(?) sheep and goat-kids were consumed by Dudu. The final line, badly broken, seems to carry a year notation — perhaps 'year 3'.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 4(?) rams — 2. Lugal-namgusu; 3. 4 (male) kids — Ur-nagar; 4. 1(?) kid — Ur-Inanna; 5. 1(?) kid — Dingir-ta; 6. 2 kids — Lugal-entarsu; 7. 4 sheep ... (two illegible signs); 8. Nita-tur, the shepherd, drove (them) off; 9. 1 sheep — Ur-...; 10. regular(?) sheep (and) kids, 11. Du-du consumed (them); 12. ...(?) 3rd(?) year(?).
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(asz@c)#? udu#-nita lugal#-nam-gu2#-su3 4(asz@c) masz2 ur-nagar 1(asz@c)? masz2 ur-inanna 1(asz@c)? masz2 dingir-ta 2(asz@c) masz2 lugal-en3?-tar-su3 4(asz@c) udu# x x? nita-tur sipa bi2-lah5# 1(asz@c) udu ur-x udu#? masz zi-da du-du gu7 n? 3(disz@t)# mu#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Kress 150. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: private: anonymous, Germany (P390448) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.