Position in chronology
MAD 4, 061
About this tablet
A small accounting tablet from Umma in southern Iraq, written during the Old Akkadian period (around 2300 BCE). It records goats, sheep, and animal hides — some marked as 'branded' and one explicitly 'unmarked' — charged to named individuals: a scribe named Ur-Šara and two shepherds, Si-du and Utu-mu, each with an associate. The closing note '5 years, 4 months' apparently states the span of time the account covers. It is a glimpse of the meticulous bookkeeping by which Mesopotamian administrators tracked even single animals and their skins over years.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a livestock and hide ledger. Two branded nanny-goat hides and one unbranded kid belong to Ur-Šara; a further kid is booked to Ur-Šara the scribe. One branded nanny goat is under the shepherd Si-du together with Ur-Suen. Then come one nanny-goat hide, one branded kid hide, one branded ram, and one branded lamb, under the shepherd Utu-mu together with Na-ešdua. The account covers a period of five years and four months.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 2 hides of nanny goats, branded (zag-šu₂), 2. 1 young goat, unbranded (nu-šu₂): 3. they are Ur-Šara's. 4. 1 young goat: Ur-Šara, the scribe. 5. 1 nanny goat, branded: 6. Si-du, the shepherd, 7. (and) Ur-Suen. 8. 1 hide of a nanny goat, 9. 1 hide of a young goat, branded, 10. 1 ram, branded, 11. 1 lamb, branded: 12. Utu-mu, the shepherd, 13. (and) Na-ešdua. 14. 5 years, 4 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
2(asz@c) kusz ud5 za3-szu2 1(asz@c) masz2 nu-szu2 ur-szara2-ka-kam 1(asz@c) masz2 ur-szara2 dub-sar 1(asz@c) ud5 za3-szu2 si-du3 sipa ur-suen 1(asz@c) kusz ud5 1(asz@c) kusz masz2 za3-szu2 1(asz@c) udu-nita za3-szu2 1(asz@c) sila4 za3-szu2 utu-mu sipa na-esz-du3-a 5(disz@t) mu 4(disz@t) iti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 4, 061. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P215223) — 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.