Position in chronology
MAD 4, 050
About this tablet
A short administrative memorandum from the Old Akkadian period (c. 2350–2200 BCE), provenience unknown, now in the Louvre. It inventories valuables — silver by weight, a mixed flock of 28 sheep and goats, a fully fitted-out cargo barge, and spare wheels — and records that the whole lot is being held by an official named Ur-mes, who bears the title sukkal ('minister/vizier'). Such deposit notes are the receipts and custody slips of an early state bureaucracy, showing how goods circulated through named, accountable officials.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Inventory on deposit: about half a mina of silver (the first entries are damaged) plus a níg-luh item, together weighing 2 minas and 12 shekels; twenty-eight assorted sheep and goats; one cargo barge, fully equipped and ready to sail; two wheels of one type and one wagon wheel. All of the above is currently held in the custody of Ur-mes, the minister. In effect, a custody receipt: these goods are with Ur-mes and he is answerable for them.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 1/2(?) mina of silver [...] 2. 1 níg-luh(?)-implement [...] 3. their weight: 2 minas 12 shekels; 4. 30 less 2 (= 28) sheep (and) goats, assorted; 5. 1 processional barge, fully equipped; 6. 2 wheels (for the) uš(?); 7. 1 wagon(?) wheel; 8–9. (all this) is on deposit with Ur-mes, the minister (sukkal).
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
1/2(disz)? ku3 ma#-[na ...] 1(asz@c) nig2-luh#? [...] ki-la2-bi 2(asz@c) ma-na 1(u) 2(disz) gin2 3(u) la2 2(asz@c) udu masz2 hi-a 1(asz@c) ma2-gur8 szu du7-a 2(asz@c) umbin usz 1(disz) umbin mar ur-mes sukkal-da i3-da-gal2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 4, 050. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P215212) — 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.