Position in chronology
MAD 4, 019
About this tablet
A shepherd's account from the Old Akkadian period (around 2300 BCE) at Umma in southern Iraq, inventorying a mixed flock of 91 sheep and 29 goats, broken down by sex and age — mother ewes, rams, young lambs and kids, nanny goats and full-grown billies. The flock belongs to a man named Ur-Šara, but is physically in the care of the herdsman En-ane, with a note on sheep whose wool had been plucked. Tablets like this were the standard instrument by which owners audited the herders entrusted with their animals, and the internal totals check out exactly — a glimpse of careful ancient bookkeeping.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Flock inventory: 32 breeding ewes, 39 rams, 11 young female lambs and 9 young male lambs of good quality; on the goat side, 14 nannies, 5 mature billy goats, 8 female kids and 2 male kids of good quality. That makes 91 sheep and 29 goats in all. The animals belong to Ur-Šara, and the herdsman En-ane is the one keeping them. The sheep that have had their wool plucked are earmarked for E-gud-diš. The record closes with the time notation: 10 years, 8 months.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 32 mother ewes, 2. 40 less 1 (= 39) rams, 3. 11 female lambs, 'fine' (ša-du), 4. 10 less 1 (= 9) male lambs, 'fine', 5. 14 nanny goats, KU, 6. 5 full-grown billy goats, 7. 8 female kids, 'fine', 8. 2 male kids, 'fine'; 9. total: 91 sheep, 10. total: 30 less 1 (= 29) goats. 11. They are the sheep of Ur-Šara; 12. En-ane keeps (lit. 'lives with') them. 13. The plucked sheep are for E-gud-diš. 14. 10 years, 8 months.
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
3(u) 2(disz) u8 ama 4(u) la2 1(asz@c) udu-nita 1(u) 1(disz) kir11 sza3-du10 1(u) la2 1(asz@c) sila4-nita sza3-du10 1(u@c) 4(asz@c) ud5 KU 5(asz@c) masz2-gal-gal 8(disz) as2-<gar3> sza3-du10 2(asz@c) masz2-nita sza3-du10 szunigin 1(gesz2) 3(u) 1(disz) udu szunigin 3(u) la2 1(asz@c) ud5 udu ur-szara2-ka-kam en-an-ne2 e-da-szex(SIG7) udu ur4-ra e2-gu4-disz-ra-am3 1(u) mu 8(disz@t) iti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 4, 019. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P215181) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.