Position in chronology
MAD 4, 116
About this tablet
A small livestock record from Umma in southern Iraq, written in the age of the Akkadian kings (about 2300–2150 BCE). Two men, Ur-Šara and Ur-Suen, are booked for a handful of young goats and animal skins tied to the festival of Dumuzi, the shepherd-god whose cult was celebrated with offerings from the flocks. The entries carefully separate items that are 'za3-šu4' from those that are not, apparently a mark or treatment of the animal or hide, which shows how precisely Akkadian-era bookkeepers tracked even single animals.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Ur-Šara: one kid without the marking and one kid with it. Ur-Suen: one kid without the marking, plus one ewe skin and one nanny-goat skin, both with the marking. These items are for the festival of Dumuzi, under Utu-mu. Dated year 8, month 1.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 kid, za3 not šu4 (unmarked?); 1 kid, za3-šu4 (marked?): (from/for) Ur-Šara. 1 kid, za3 not šu4 (unmarked?); 1 ewe skin, za3-šu4 (marked?); 1 nanny-goat skin, za3-šu4 (marked?): (from/for) Ur-Suen. Festival of Dumuzi. Utu-mu (responsible official?). Year 8, month 1.
Our translation engine — Opus 5.5. 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
1(asz@c) masz2 za3 nu-szu4 1(asz@c) masz2 za3-szu4 ur-szara2-ka 1(asz@c) masz2 za3 nu-szu4 1(asz@c) kusz u8 za3-szu4 1(asz@c) kusz ud5 za3-szu4 ur-suen ezem dumu-zi-da utu-mu 8(disz@t) mu 1(disz@t) iti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 4, 116. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P215278) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (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.