Position in chronology
MAD 4, 028
About this tablet
An inventory of livestock from the Old Akkadian period (around 2300 BCE), the everyday bookkeeping of a Mesopotamian herd. A scribe counts out cattle by age and function — work oxen, cows, calves still at their mothers' side — and then sheep and goats, from mother ewes down to suckling kids. The small flock of 43 sheep and goats is totalled and recorded as the responsibility of a man named Ur-Suen, probably a herdsman or official who had to answer for these animals at the next accounting.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Livestock on the books: three work oxen, one three-year-old ox, three cows, one yearling cow, and three calves still nursing at their mothers' side. Then the flock: five mother ewes, one suckling ewe lamb, thirty-three mother goats, three suckling female kids, and one suckling male kid. Bottom line: forty-three sheep and goats currently on hand. All of it is charged to Ur-Suen's account.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 3 draft oxen, 2. 1 ox, three years old, 3. 3 cows, 4. 1 cow, one year old, 5. 3 calves at (their mothers') side, 6. 5 mother ewes, 7. 1 suckling female lamb, 8. 33 mother goats, 9. 3 suckling female kids, 10. 1 suckling male kid. 11. Total: 43 sheep and goats standing (on hand/allocated); 12. (this is) of Ur-Suen.
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(asz@c) gu4-gesz 1(asz@c) gu4 3(disz@t) 3(asz@c) ab2 1(asz@c) ab2 1(disz@t) 3(asz@c) amar da-ba 5(asz@c) u8 ama 1(asz@c) kir11 sza3-du10 3(u) 3(disz) ud5 ama 3(asz@c) as2-gar3 sza3-du10 1(asz@c) masz2 sza3-du10 szunigin 4(u) 3(disz) udu ud5 gub-ba ur-suen-kam
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 4, 028. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P215190) — 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.