Position in chronology
MAD 4, 124
About this tablet
A small debt record from Umma in southern Iraq, written in the Sargonic (Old Akkadian) period around 2300–2200 BCE. A man named Lugal-KA holds a claim of just under one shekel of silver against Ur-e-AB, and two local craftsmen, a metalsmith and a leatherworker, stand as witnesses. It is a glimpse of everyday credit among ordinary townspeople, with a named date so the claim could be enforced later.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Ur-e-AB (Tutuda) owes three-quarters of a shekel of silver, that is, one shekel less a quarter, and Lugal-KA is the one holding the claim against him. The witnesses to this are x-gi the smith, whose name is partly unreadable, and Ur-zu the leatherworker. Dated in the twelfth month of year four.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse/Reverse (as given, without side markers): 1. 1 shekel minus 1/4 (shekel) of silver, 2. Ur-e-AB, Tutuda — 3. Lugal-KA 4. holds (it as a claim) against him. 5. x-gi, the smith, 6. Ur-zu, the leatherworker: 7. they are the witnesses. 8. 4th year, 12th month.
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) la2 igi-4(disz)-gal2 ku3 gin2 ur-e2-AB tu-tu-da lugal-KA-e i3-da-tuku x-gi simug ur-zu aszgab lu2-ki-inim-ma-me 4(disz@t) mu 1(u) 2(disz@t) iti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 4, 124. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P215286) — 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.